Surprise new track from Metallica ahead of Glastonbury!

The world cup has been full of surprises, and who knows what Wimbledon will bring next week? Inevitably facebook friends grumbling that ‘Andy Murray is British when he’s winning and Scottish when he’s losing.’

On top of it all, there’s Glastonbury coverage to look forward to, and this year’s surprise headliners are Metallica. I am aware that this has gone down badly with some people, who seem to think that the festival should only ever book white boy guitar bands (they must have been at a different festival from the one I was at in 1995, 1997 and 2000, clearly), but I’m willing to bet that like Jay-Z and Beyonce in years gone by, this will show the Eavis family to have a more diverse booking policy and taste than some of the people who attend.

Metallica are working on their new album, they released this new track today, which sounds like classic Metallica to these ears. If it doesn’t quite yet compare with the likes of ‘One’ ‘Enter Sandman’ or ‘Fade To Black’ then, that’s probably because you’ve lived with those tracks for so long.

Time will tell. In the meantime, this is Metallica’s latest song ‘Lords Of Summer’ – crank it up.

Lou Reed & Metallica? Don’t knock it ’til you tried it!

lou-reed-metallica

I love much of the work that Metallica and Lou Reed have done independently over the years, but I have to say I was more than a little surprised when I heard that the two acts were collaborating together on an album. Surely it would end up like the audio equivalent of chocolate and salmon mouse?

Well, it might have done, but you can now stream the album Lulu on their joint website and it’s clear that it works rather well. This is the live performance of Reed joining Metallica in New York for a version of the Velvets’ ‘Sweet Jane’ in 2009 which lead to the collaboration. I was prepared to be perplexed – I ended up really enjoying it.

This is a film of Reed and Metallica discussing the album’s evolution:

It’s inevitable that there will be those who are diehard fans of one of the acts and can’t stand it. But both acts have survived an incredibly long time in a fickle industry by not constantly doing what is expected of them -Reed particularly. No douubt many hours could be spent trawling the ‘net trying to get the fans view of the album, but there are only so many hours in the day. Why not make up your own mind and lsiten below?

Stream the entire album here

It’s David vs. Goliath…

…oh no, hang on, it’s not. A mere nine months after 17 Seconds bigged them up and interviewed them, Glasvegas are going head to head with Metallica in the album charts.

Is it about sales? Well, no, but it’s a sign of how far a band can come…watch this video from the UK’s ITN news.

Glasvegas v Metallica in the battle of the bands
Glasvegas v Metallica in the battle of the bands

Amusing, no? Although the idea that for running a race you get chocolate and fizzy drinks (note to non-scots: in scotland ‘juice’ is the name given to fizzy drinks, not necessarily something that comes from fruit), perhaps speaks volumes about Scotland’s health issues…

Anyway, 17 Seconds is firmly routing for Glasvegas in this battle.