Death Magnetic - Reception

Reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	78/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
BBC Music	favorable
The Boston Phoenix
Entertainment Weekly	(B+)
The Guardian
IGN	(8/10)
NME	(8/10)
Paste Magazine	(8.6/10)
Rolling Stone
Uncut
Pitchfork Media	(4.9/10)

"But if you ignore the lyrics, Death Magnetic sounds more like it's about coming back to life. Everything comes together on the fan-favorite-to-be "Broken, Beat and Scarred," which manages to channel the full force of Metallica behind a positive message: "What don't kill ya make ya more strong," Hetfield sings, with enough power to make the cliché feel fresh. The aphorism he paraphrases happens to come from Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols, which is subtitled How to Philosophize With a Hammer. Metallica's philosophizing may get shaky — but long may that hammer strike."

— Review by Rolling Stone, 2008

In a 2007 interview with Rolling Stone, Velvet Revolver drummer Matt Sorum described his impressions of the unfinished songs:

Lars is a good friend of mine. He played me the demos from San Francisco, and I turned and looked at him and I said, 'Master that shit and put it out.' It's ridiculous. The demos were sick. Eight-minute songs, all these tempo changes, crazy fast. It's like, 'Dude, don't get slower when you get older, but don't get faster!? How are you gonna play this live?' And then me and Lars were out partying all night, and he had to go in the studio the next day and do this stupid like nine- or ten-minute song, and I was laughing at him — because he played me the demo of it, and it was, so fast. I called him, and said, 'Dude, how are you feeling?' He was like, 'Dude, I'm hurting.' They're cutting everything to tape, no fuckin' Pro Tools — live, no clicks.

The album's first single, "The Day That Never Comes", was described as the most downbeat track on the album, and is said to be reminiscent of their 1990 Grammy-winning epic breakthrough single "One"; Rock Sound has also compared it to the likes of Thin Lizzy. The band has abandoned the solo-free approach that they followed on St. Anger, returning to complex, multi-layered arrangements such as those typically found on the band's fourth album ...And Justice for All.

Death Magnetic has been praised by fans as well as critics as a comeback for Metallica after the widely panned St. Anger. Thrash Hits was one of the first websites, along with The Quietus to comment on Death Magnetic, claiming "it is a vast improvement on 2003 album St Anger." Metal Hammer noted Death Magnetic's "sharp riffs" and "uncharacteristic bouncing grooves," and favorably compares the band's sound on the album to bands like Slayer, Led Zeppelin and Rage Against the Machine. Former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy has praised the album, saying "Death Magnetic is hands down the best Metallica album in 20 years. This is the CD I've been waiting for them to make since …And Justice for All. And thumbs up to them for doing the first real Metallica instrumental in 20 years since 'To Live Is to Die'. Welcome back, boys."

While Metallica was on the first leg of their 2008 tour in Europe, a third party at their management Q Prime demanded that media impressions and blogs commenting on the album be taken down from their website for reasons that were not explained to the band. However, when the band learned of this, they were upset and Ulrich re-posted many of the links along with other reactions to the new album, along with an apology to those whose links had been removed from Metallica's website.

Reviews for the album have been mostly positive. Allmusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave the album four out of five stars, stating that the album is like "hearing Metallica sound like Metallica again". Other positive reviews come from publications like The Guardian, who say that the album is "the strongest material the band have written in 20 years", and Uncut, declaring that "like all the best heavy rock albums, it suspends your disbelief, demands your attention and connects directly with your inner adolescent."

On September 15, 2008, after a reviewer for Swedish daily Sydsvenskan admitted that he preferred a shortened mix of Death Magnetic to the official release, a scheduled interview was duly cancelled by Universal Music Sweden. Its president, Per Sundin said:

“

The reviewer is referring to a BitTorrent where someone has altered the original songs. The reviewer explains exactly where one should go in order to download the file that totally infringes on a copyright. It's not only an illegal file, but an altered file. The reviewer also writes that this is how the album should have sounded. File-sharing of music is illegal. Period. There's nothing to discuss. That fact – that Sydsvenskan has a writer that has downloaded this music illegally and then makes mention of an illegal site in his review – is totally unacceptable to us.

”