Death Magnetic (Limited Edition Coffin Box) (Only Available Online)

Having seen Metallica live twice in the last year, following this album with ridiculously high levels of anticipation and hope, through the bands own various websites including the newly release Mission Metallica, fly-on-the-wall videos and footage... The release of Death Magnetic is a bittersweet one for long-term fans of the band.

The songs themselves are excellent as many people here are saying; Quality riffing, soloing, drumming and bass work highlighting well thought out themes and structures of each and every song. The album even has a 10-minute instrumental in the shape of "Suicide & Redemption" and is probably the most genuine offering I've heard from a big name band in a long time. Songs are heavy, winding and progressive; everything that most new bands today dare not to do or lack completely.

But it is all let down by the sound, something all fans the band would HAVE to get right with their vast fortune and Metallica PR and production staff working on the album. There is no doubt the album is a casualty of the "loudness war" and all version of the album (official download, streaming, CD and vinyl) are brick walled due to the sound levels being pushed un-naturally high, causing technically unwanted, artificial and unpleasant distortion throughout the album, most notably on the single "Day That Never Comes" and the last track "My Apocalypse". The worst part of all this is one of the producers, Ted Jensen is distancing himself from the finished product claiming that the original recordings he received were already distorted and tainted beyond clear recognition.

The band get almost get all the way to the finish line with an LPs worth of quality tunes, only to be caught out by the most basic and embarrassing of sound issues.

The long awaited death magnetic and it's numerous expensive release formats. There's the cd, the limited digi-pack cd, the 2 lp vinyl, the (incredibly expensive) 5 lp 45rpm mastered vinyl and this, the much touted on-line only coffin box. I'm guessing it's on-line only because anyone that actually saw it would laugh at the idea of paying 70-90 quid for it! (Depending where you get it)
It's a large, plain coffin shaped cardboard box with 2 cd's, a dvd and a few bits and pieces in it. £40 Would have been just about acceptable.
The t-shirt, of course, is large only.

Aside from that, i should mention the music! ;)
On the face of it, it's a return to form. Flat out songs with riff after crushing riff, drums that sound like drums and guitar solos! Unfortunately, most of the riffs are fairly forgettable, the solos are easily the worst kirk hammet has commited to tape, and the drums, along with everything else, are marred by the incredibly compressed mix, which as previously mentioned is riddled with digital clipping. This makes the album very wearing to listen to. Really, somebody bar rick rubin from all the world's recoding studios! Please!

On the plus side, hetfield's vocals are great. Since the black album he has progressively become more of a singer than a lead shouter, and here he combines the early metallica aggression with his new found confidence to good effect. His voice has matured and he can't hit some of the screechy notes he used to, but they didn't sound very good anyway! And he makes good use of the vocal range availabe to him. The songs may grow on me and prove to be more memorable than i've given them credit for, but the terrible production won't change. And the multiple rip-off formats are a fact. Buy the ordinary cd, don't listen too loud because it's painful, and hope rick rubin gets locked up and dynamics return to music recording.

This is the first Metallica CD I have bought.

The limited edition coffin box is great and all the extra's you get inside. You even get a card with a number on it you can enter on their site to download a bonus track. The bonus track is a live track which was played at the O2 arena or a track which was played in Germany. You only have one choice of track, but you can purchase further tracks from the dedicated website.

The other things you get are good quality, but to be honest I wouldn't say they are a must buy unless you're a die hard Metallica fan. The coffin box is good for display purposes if you've got room to display it anywhere. The coffin box comes in shrink wrap with a sticker on it, which you have to peel off because when you unwrap the shrink wrap the coffin box is just plain. Bit of a shame considering you're paying £80 for this.

The album is great, heavy with loads of good riff's. That's where it stops because the album is very distorted in sound quality.

The CD is loud sure, you'll say to yourself that's great, it's not. You can't really hear the vocals very well and it's just a disaster. I don't know what the band was thinking letting this be released.

It's being reported on the Internet that the Guitar Hero III downloadable content sounds better than the CD, but I cannot confirm this because I don't own the game.

One thing I can confirm is I did listen to the demo CD, and that sounds better than the retail copy of the album.

Metallica needs to fix this, there is nothing on their website about it at all.

5/5 for the album allthough it deserves 4/5 just for the sheer mock up with the sound quality, and distortion. Best track on the album has to be track 5 - All Nightmare Long.

I would avoid purchasing this until a remastered version is released - if there is one. Or get the Guitar Hero III downloadable content for the Xbox 360/Sony PS3.

Great service from play.com as ever, item was well packed and wasn't damaged, thank you again.