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It needs to be said that Metallica haven't had artwork worth a damn after ...and Justice for All and, seeing this yellow abomination, I can probably say that that ship has sailed. ugh... Moving on.

I liked most of Hardwired... To Self-Destruct nearly six years ago, so I was curious to see how this would sound like—and let's be honest, when Metallica is one of the bands that got you into metal in the mid-80s, you're at least curious, though more likely coming in with low expectations. Overall I'd say 72 Seasons is more accessible, while still rocking pretty hard for the most part—it's just more melodic overall and a lot of these songs are very catchy, whether you like them or not. Hetfield's voice sounds OK, but we're far from the more aggressive delivery of the early years and that's nothing new. Just not a fan. What I like the most is the guitar work which, without breaking any new grounds, often sounds pretty damn good, with some really catchy riffs and some cool solos popping up here and there.

An hour and 17 minutes of this is too much, however. There are some songs that could easily have been left out and the album would have been better off for it. There's some strong material here (in the context of "modern Metallica," that is), but a few songs wouldn't qualify for a B-side, let alone for an album. This obsession some bands have with "giving us more" often results in fillers like this. Sometimes, more is worse than not enough, and that's true here.

There are watered-down hints of classic Metallica here, and that once again got some people a little too excited based on the comments I saw around the time of release. Fact is, if this were any other band, this is not an album that would have made much noise. You can easily find better by throwing a rock into a pond of underground bands. But this is not horrible and contains enough good material, and that's all one can expect from Metallica these days.