Beyond Magnetic is the third extended play by American heavy metal band Metallica. It was initially released on December 13, 2011, on iTunes before being released through other formats later in 2012. It consists of four tracks that were scrapped from the band's ninth studio album Death Magnetic (2008), and were left unfinished before that album's final mixing took place. The EP is predominantly thrash metal, though the tracks range in style.
The release of the EP coincided with the band's 30th anniversary shows at The Fillmore, where one song from the EP would be played live each show before they were made available for download. Critic reviews for Beyond Magnetic ranged from mixed to positive, with critics divided on the quality of the tracks on the EP itself. Several writers felt that the release of the EP was a response to the poor reception towards the band's previous project, Lulu (2011). The EP charted in several territories, reaching number 28 on the Billboard 200 and number 1 on the UK Rock & Metal albums chart.
From 2007 to 2008, Metallica worked on their ninth studio album, Death Magnetic,[1] with Rick Rubin serving as the album's producer.[2] Originally, the band recorded 14 songs for Death Magnetic. When it came time for the album's final track list to be decided, the band narrowed it down to 10 songs, with the other 4 being left as rough mixes.[1] The tracks were recorded between April 2007 and May 2008 across three separate recording studios: Sound City Studios in Los Angeles, California; Shangri-La in Malibu, California; and Metallica's HQ in San Rafael, California.[3] Following the release of Death Magnetic and Mission Metallica–a documentary about the record's creation which featured snippets of the scrapped songs, several rumors were spread about them.[1]
Throughout December 2011, Metallica played each of the four songs live for the first time during their 30th anniversary shows at The Fillmore, one each night.[a] After each song's live performance, the digital download for it would be sent to members of the band's fan club.[5] On December 13, all four songs were released as part of the Beyond Magneticextended play,[1] originally being released only through iTunes.[5] It was later released on CD in late January 2012,[b][6] and on vinyl on April 21 in celebration of Record Store Day.[7]
Music
Beyond Magnetic is a predominantly thrash metal[8] EP that consists of four tracks: "Hate Train", "Just a Bullet Away", "Hell and Back", and "Rebel of Babylon".[9] Due to the songs being abandoned prior to the final mixing of Death Magnetic, they are far less compressed; a common criticism of Death Magnetic was its production.[3]
"Hate Train" adopts a sound similar to the band's earliest work, though incorporates a groove style similar to what is found on their sixth studio album Load (1996).[9] "Just a Bullet Away" features a style similar to their fifth studio album Metallica (1991),[10] with a writer of Loudwire describing it as "post-Sabbath".[11] "Hell and Back" has been described by Mark Fisher of Metal Forces as Load-sounding alternative rock,[9] as well as a thrash metal epic.[12][13] "Rebel of Babylon" is an epic that features a sound which Fisher deemed as similar to the Misfits and Danzig.[9]
Kyle Anderson of Entertainment Weekly described the songs on Beyond Magnetic as a series of "classically punishing hair-whippers" that reminded the world of Metallica's "commitment to the art of the shred".[16]Stephen Thomas Erlewine, writing for AllMusic, said that the EP was an "acknowledgment of the band's core strengths". He felt that any of the songs could have easily been part of Death Magnetic without hindering the album's quality, yet remained as a "potent shot of old-fashioned thrash" when viewed independently.[8] Contrarily, Alex Young of Consequence of Sound believed that the songs on Beyond Magnetic were left behind for good reason, and that when combined with "uneven mix quality or blatant defects", it created an EP of "listless, pointless neutrality on a moving train".[15]
Malcom Dome of Classic Rock wrote that the songs on Beyond Magnetic were "far more" than scrapped songs, believing that each song's "energy and thrust" had not been tampered with in contrast to those that made it onto Death Magnetic, which he viewed as an album with "too much mixing".[14] He further described Beyond Magnetic as grimy, bare, and "the way Metallica should record their next album".[14] Fisher echoed similar thoughts, believing that the unfinished production of the songs elevated their quality.[9]
Fisher felt that, while the release of the tracks was likely in the works for some time and would help satisfy fans until the release of Metallica's next studio album, none of the songs would leave listeners wondering why they did not make Death Magnetic, and that the release seemed "an awful lot like damage control" from the reception towards the band's previous release, Lulu (2011).[9] Echoing similar thoughts were Anderson and Young. The former interpreted the release of the EP as an apology for Lulu,[16] while the latter described it as an EP "released to a public feeling drowsy from side effects associated with Lou Reed".[15]
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