The day that never comes

Is the title of the 4th track in the latest Metallica album "Death Magnetic" and its first released single.

Reminder: This album is supposed to be back in the good old heavy/thrash metal genre done by another producer than Bob Rock who was one of the main figures behind hard rock taste of those albums in the past except St. Anger

It starts brilliantly with a taunting horror movie rhythm, something that could surely be found somewhere in "Ride The Lightning" but then comes the sounds of guitars with kind of trademark hard rock (Load/Reload) rhythm and is followed shortly by the main rhythm assisted excellently with Lars' drums. James starts with slow/soft voice which reminds us how good is voice is on a general scale!

Born to push around
Better just stay down
You pull away,
He hits the flesh,
You hit the ground

Mouth so full of lies
Tend to black your eyes
Just keep them closed
Keep praying
Just keep waiting

Here comes the chorus and everything takes a turn and gets rough with almost the same tempo

Waiting for the one
The day that never comes
When you stand up and feel the warmth
But the sunshine never comes

No the sunshine never comes

Slow again and back to the same riff...just beautiful rhythm

Push you cross that line
Just stay down this time
Hide in yourself
Crawl in yourself
You'll have your time
God I'll make them pay (typical James' sound effect...yeah yeah!)
Take it back one day (here you could easily imagine James' face turning a bit big bad wolf or something)
I'll end this day
I'll splatter color on this gray

Back to chorus again...rough and fast drum beats but at the end, instead of no the sunshine never comes (ca. 3:51), it all changes to completely another track with different riff and tempo which is quite OK as a separate track but has no coherency whatsoever with what has been played before. It feels like that the writers/producer remembered that this is supposed to be in Death Magnetic and it is still too soft and all the ingredients have to be added as fast as possible not thinking too much of the whole picture. You realize that you haven't put too much salt in your pasta exactly when it is about to be "al-dente" so you rush with salt and you end up with salty pasta or something weird. The peak of weirdness (and mediocrity if you will) is when James screams

This I swear
This I swear

and after that it continues with a upbeat tempo, something like Whiplash, with its usual elements and fast riff and Kirk's typical lead and stuff...back to Kill'EM All...and it finishes accordingly, nothing special, nothing new, still OK but not as attractive as the first part

Overall: A+ first part, C- second part, total B+

The video is also kind of a disappointment, starts with 2 soldiers (supposedly in Afghanistan) sitting in the back of a truck ridding in a desert while at times it is cut to the band playing in the same location. They come under attack from out of nowhere, they seek refuge by the road side, one of them is injured, a rescue helicopter finally arrives while injured solider faints at times and the other tries to keep him awake. Then their small platoon comes across a small car with a man and a woman who need help and there's all this lame suspense and fear if they are (particularly the woman) suicide bombers or not but at the end the lead soldier gets a deep eye contact with the woman who is wearing burqa and he trusts her and they help them start their car.

It all seems like that they chose this premise just because US is involved in a unpopular (and failed?) war and it's just on everybody's mind as a hot topic, it draws everyone's attention. As a whole, the video is totally worthless and doesn't have any value whatsoever

Overall: D-