Metallica - 72 Seasons

Seven years on from Hardwired...To Self-Destruct, Metallica returned in 2023 with their twelfth studio album and one of the most conceptually ambitious records of their career. Released April 14, 2023 on the band's own Blackened Recordings and produced by Greg Fidelman with James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, the 12-track, 77-minute album finds the band as focused and ferocious as ever.

The title refers to the 72 seasons of childhood, the first 18 years of life that shape who we become. Hetfield articulated the concept with characteristic depth: those early years form what he calls our "true or false selves," a set of beliefs and identities handed down by parents and circumstance that follow us into adulthood, quietly driving our perceptions, behaviors, and relationships whether we recognize it or not. The album explores that tension between the children we were and the adults we became, between being prisoners of our earliest experiences and finding the strength to break free of them.

It is heavy subject matter, and Metallica meet it with appropriately heavy music. Spread across two records and best heard loud, 72 Seasons is a reminder that few bands at any stage of their career can match Metallica at full force.