Home News Classic Rock News Lars Ulrich Explains How “Kill ‘Em All” Influenced New Metallica Album, “Hardwired…to...

Lars Ulrich Explains How “Kill ‘Em All” Influenced New Metallica Album, “Hardwired…to Self-Destruct”

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Blackened RecordingsThis week, Metallica offered the first taste of its forthcoming album Hardwired…to Self-Destruct in the form of a thrashy, three-minute song called “Hardwired.” By Metallica’s standards, the track is relatively simple — a characteristic that drummer Lars Ulrich says extends to the rest of the album.

“Most of the songs are simpler,” Ulrich tells Rolling Stone. “We introduce a mood and we stick to it, rather than songs we’ve done where one riff happens and we go over here and then over there and becomes a journey through all these different soundscapes. The songs are more linear.”

That direction was in part inspired by Metallica’s 1983 album Kill ‘Em All, which the band revisited when they performed it in full during the 2013 Orion festival, and again when they reissued the album this year.

“[Kill ‘Em All] had its own thing with the speed, but it’s simpler — the songs are longer but not quite as progressive,” says Ulrich. “It’s a world all its own. And I think there are some elements of that that rubbed off into [Hardwired…to Self-Destruct]. I’d say there’s a trace of residue from rediscovering Kill ‘Em All that crept into the songwriting.”

Hardwired…to Self-Destruct will be released November 18.

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