New Metallica Album

People, I'm a big Metallica fan, they're among my favorite bands and their next CD is one of the albums (to be out the next year) I hope with more expectations. I've heard only one song they played live (on Youtube) from this so expected new album. I've also read somewhere Lars saying this is going to be in the vein of the great "Master Of Puppets", and that are really good news!! 
So, what do you expect for this album? Sound (it was stated it'll NOT sound like St. Anger, fortunately)? Any comments are welcome.

Yeah, Metallica died soon after 1991. Run out of ideas, stepped on commercial path, - fully understandable and unfortunately too common cause of death.

Slayer producer Rick Rubin replaced uber failure Bob Rock, so I'm expecting good production, which was horribly lacking on St. Anger. I know the band wanted a sloppy production for the rawness, but bad production =/= grit. Metallica's debut had poor production but the songs were raw. If the songs are commericalized and the production sux, you have a double whammy of failure. I'm looking forward to the band returning to their roots but I'll be ready to quit Metallica if they make another St. Anger.

It is NOT going to sound anything like Master of Puppets, I am positive. They may have been influenced by the songs on that album, but they will take that and release another album full of mutilated and mangled songs with a few good moments tossed inbetween. I have heard two new songs from the album; the first one they played live has a couple of good parts, but the bulk of it is mediocre, while the second song is pretty punkish, and catchy, but nothing really great. Of course, I have been a Metallica fan for nine years, so I will check out the new album, but I have precious little hope that it will be any good. Still, as long as they beat St. Anger, I won't complain.

Oh, and Rick Rubin is a good producer, but when did he last produce something that was actually good? I would rather Metallica got a hold of Andy Sneap or Roy Z. Although Roy has been lowering his standards lately, he's notoriously known for reviving careers (Bruce Dickinson and Halford solo, the newest Judas Priest). And both he and Andy know what metal sounds like these days, as opposed to Rick Rubin.

Logos wrote: No expectations at all.There's no Metallica anymore.

    Right on.

lucas wrote: metallica died with Cliff Burton.

I don't agree. "And Justce For All..." is very good. The Black Album is good too although the music is simpler.

It's most likely not gonna' be a new Master or Justice though, still I have some expections to it. I hope It will be better than St. Anger, although I liked that one pretty much (sue me!).

I think the black album was very good. Load and Reload were so-so.... St. anger was IT, the "worst album by a band that was decent" ever. Awful. Atrocious. Disgusting. repugnant. So I don't have any good expectations. Besides, Lars ulrich is all for the money, so he always follows trend; i wouldn't be surprised if the new album turns out to be hip-hop-metal or something like that.

Stjernestøv wrote:     I can soothe your fears. There is no way Metallica will ever release a hip-hop metal album, haha. This is simply because James Hetfield can't stand rap. Besides, if they were to release such an album, they would've done so many years ago, when it was still popular to do so. Rapmetal has been out of vogue for years now.

Agree, also it happens the same with Nu Metal, but Metallica would NEVER go too far.

I would die inside if they did that. Well, they already did the Ja Rule thing (without Hetfield, I might add), but that was just a one-off, not something they included on an album. But why even consider the possibility? It's so unlikely. I gotta give it to Metallica, they actually have standards to this day. They are one of very few majorly successful bands that has never released a best-of collection. Now that they should be proud of. And if Ulrich has never wanted to do that, what makes you think he would start to include rappers on their albums?