All last year, while Metallica were promoting their box-office bomb Through The Never, reporters asked "hey guys, new album, maybe?" and along the band would say that things would kick into high gear in 2014, with a possible release in late 2014, but more likely early 2015.
Well, it's 2014, so what's the status, guys? Kirk Hammett recently spoke to Billboard, saying the band is getting ready to hit the studio in a few weeks:
"When we start, that's going to be our main priority, and we're pretty excited about it because we've been saying we need to start working on this album, but we've been procrastinating greatly with it. We've pretty much come up with every sort of excuse we can not to start work on the album, but we've run out of excuses, so we pretty much have to start work on it now."
Hmm, not the surest sign that the band is pumped to head into the studio. Hammett later added that the reason for the procrastination is the massive amount of riffs they have to go through:
"You hear about these bands that are sitting in the studio and they don't have any songs, what are they gonna do? That's not Metallica. Metallica's problem is the total opposite. We have too many ideas. James (Hetfield) has, like, 800 ideas. I have 400. Those number alone are just crazy. That's formidable."
This would be the first new full length since the band's "return to form" with 2008's Death Magnetic. The band has said previously that they envision the new material will be "a continuation of Death Magnetic."
Metallica, and Kirk specifically, have plenty on their plate in the next few weeks. They'll be performing at the Grammys, and Kirk will be curating his first Fear FestEvil in early February.
Are you pumped for new Metallica?
