After the use of Metallica’s 1986 hit Master of Puppets in the super popular Netflix show “Stranger Things,” the legendary metal band took off in popularity. Since the Black album in 1990, the group’s lineup has changed a lot and they have released albums since then like “Hardwired… To Self Destruct!” and “Lulu,” but none have reached the same amount of popularity. The band originally planned to release their newest album “72 Seasons” before the pandemic but it was pushed back by Covid. Metallica released one of the songs on the album named “Lux Aeterna” on November 28th, 2022 to build hype for the release of the new album. Metallica would go on to release the songs “Screaming Suicide” and “If Darkness Had a Son” shortly after they released the full album.

So, who is Metallica? In 1981, James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich formed a metal band that was going to change the industry. Although the band has changed a lot with the addition of guitarist Kirk Hammet and Bassist Rob Trujillo, they have managed to stay together. Even though most bands from the time have broken up or slowly faded away, James and Lars have kept the band alive. Luckily, though they all had drinking problems or had done drugs, the group is still alive and healthy.

Metallica’s discography is one of the most celebrated metal lineups ever, but one album stands above the rest. “Master of Puppets” is maybe the best metal album of the 80’s and has their most popular song, so it has to be the best right? Well I would argue the “Black” album is up their for one of their best. The biggest song on the “Black” album is of course “Enter Sandman” which was an instant classic but they also had “Nothing else matters” which was used as an instrumental in the Netflix show “Wednesday”. Other than those two there was Also “Sad But True” which was big back in the day. Whichever is better depends on preference as the 80’s and 90’s albums had pretty different sounds but they are both amazing.

Despite it being 6 years since “Hardwired…To Self Destruct!” the band is still motivated. In an interview with Lars Ulrich, drummer of Metallica, he said “If it wasn’t because we thought the best album was still ahead of us, why keep doing it?” The future of “72 Seasons” is still unclear; will it fade into obscurity or will it become one of their best albums? We just don’t know, but I for one will keep listening.