Sure, we love our
Metallica loud.
But could their new album be
too darn loud?
According to the
Guardian, audiophiles are complaining that
Death Magnetic is the latest - and worst - participant in the current
"loudness war"..."... an ongoing industry effort to make recordings as loud as possible, so that on
cursory listens tracks leap forcefully from the speakers. While any
album can just have its volume turned up on your stereo, records like
Death Magnetic have their audio compressed, making them inherently
louder at the expense of dynamic range and sound quality."
Not only that, the Guitar Hero version of
Death Magnetic sounds a lot better because it was mixed differently for the game, "with far better dynamic range."
Plus, you get extra content on the game version according to the band's
website.
In the meantime, we're wondering how Lars Ulrich's famously jerky knee will respond to the album's own sound engineer, Ted Jensen, on this one...
"I'm certainly sympathetic to your
reaction," said Ted Jensen, head engineer at Sterling Sound, quoted on
the Metallica forum. "I get to slam my head against that brick wall
every day. In this case, the mixes were already brick-walled before
they arrived at my place. Suffice to say I would never be pushed to
overdrive things as far as they are here.""Believe me I'm not
proud to be associated with this one, and we can only hope that some
good will come from this in some form of backlash against volume above
all else."
Over to you, Lars!
In other Metallica news, the band has played on the same bill as Mrs Sarkozy in London. They all appeared on "Later With Jools Holland". Metallica ended on "Enter Sandman" and got the biggest cheer of the night according to the
BBC.
See if you can spot her clapping along...