Released: 2011

Genres: Thrash Metal, Heavy Metal

The Musiquarium’s Beyond Magnetic Review Score: 3.5/5

Released three years after Death Magnetic (the album whose sessions Beyond Magnetic originates from), and two months after the band’s extremely controversial and critically-reviled (but grossly misunderstood) Lou Reed collaboration, Lulu, one can’t help but feel that this EP was a way of earning Metallica back some goodwill, with a rather straightforward helping of thrash metal.

Hate Train, Just a Bullet Away, Hell and Back and Rebel of Babylon are all solid riff-fests, with the band blending together the groove metal sound of the Load/Reload era with their thrash roots, and at only 30 minutes long, Beyond Magnetic is refreshingly brief, which is quite welcome after so many 78 minute-long projects (their last album that was under 75 minutes was their 1991 self-titled album).

Thankfully Rick Rubin and the band learnt from their mistakes from Death Magnetic and fixed the mastering on these tracks, as the production here is not brickwalled to hell like that album was. Now if only we could get a remaster of that album…

For credit breakdowns and historic release details, view Metallica on Discogs.

Back to the 2011 Album Guide or the Metallica Reviews page.

Written by Brett Nippard