Metallica: Once The World's Most Important Band, Now Just Generic

Success sometimes give the licence to push the boundaries of your music. Or at least have some fun around the edges. The Rubens, a year on from the release of their Hoops album that gave them further chart prominence and even a title track topping of The Hottest 100, do the kind of obligatory ‘deluxe edition’ of the thing, with all the necessary added leftover tracks and bonus EP, with the perhaps surprising sidebar of these nice white kids straight outta Menangle revealing there’s obviously some urban turns on their Spotify playlists. Thus, cover of Chance The Rapper’s muse on maturity and change, Same Drugs (Ivy League). The mere thought of that will horrify some, but they mean well – and deliver it with what seems to be some affection and respect. Sure, it’s fairly unlikely it’ll get them a new audience on the south side of Chicago – but it does no harm, and might actually pique the curiosity of some of their enthusiasts to broaden their musical horizons. 

And then some have formulas they’ll seemingly never break. There was a time when Metallica might have been the most important band in the world. But then there’s been this almost pathological need to fuck with that status. A ‘documentary’ that made Spinal Tap look like a documentary. An album with Lou Reed so wretched it should probably only be remembered for offering the lyric “I am the table!” to become an interweb meme for about 10 minutes longer than it deserved to be. But Atlas, Arise! (Blackened/EMI) is well back in their comfort zone. Six minutes, words like ‘alone’ and ‘undertaker’ cast about, big guitar lines, Lars gets to do the big drum fills, and the disturbing image in the clip of Hetfield in what appears to be a pastel Hawaiian shirt. They’re not quite a parody of themselves, but have become so generic even the exclamation mark in the title seems both meaningless and a cliché all at once. 

Taylor Hawkins might be taking some cues from some second-hand experience as he releases his first genuine solo item. He’s the drummer in the successful band who wants to be more than that. This approach worked for Dave Grohl  - the bloke whose band he’s drummer in, and Hawkins has still got his day job in Foo Fighters to fall back on if needs be. He plays everything and does just about everything else on Range Rover Bitch (taylorhawkins.com), but while he claims he’s taken cues from the perhaps surprising sources like Blur and The Kinks, the title and words make it sound like the work of a ‘80s hair metal combo, with echoes of his work with Brian May in the unspooling guitar, and a soupcon of circa 1973 Deep Purple in the outro screaming warble. Fooey’s fans will no doubt investigate further.

Also coming back a bit different than before, our Husky. Although after spending time in Berlin, the different light of Late Night Store (Liberation) is maybe not what would be expected when for so long resettlement to the German capital meant you’d likely come back 20 kilos thinner, black-clad, moodily depressive, and with a drug problem. The soul-ly elements of the eponymous Mr Gawenda’s voice are brought out more as he looks for the Teutonic equivalent of a Kit-Kat on the neon-lit shelves, over a musical tumble that’s nearly a groove, but stops itself before it becomes something so obvious.

There remains something oddly European in The Veils. Which is a neat trick for Finn Andrews, a Kiwi kid based in England, even if with input from elements of Run The Jewels on their latest, the sunnily-titled Total Depravity. Each track they’ve highlighted from the record has shown different tangents of their muse: Axolotl was the jagged avant-garde moment, Low Lays The Devil tumbled on a rolling ‘60s organ line, and now Iodine And Iron (Nettwerk/Footstomp) is of the tinkling Cave-ish stroll through sylvan glades - with something stalking you from the trees. This further suiting young Finn’s upcoming turn in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks reboot. 

The boy/girl rock duo is often bedevilled with the easy comparison. Any degree of loudness and/or articulating some element of the suburban blues and it’s the coin toss whether the first name that comes is almost invariably The White Stripes or The Kills. But Elko Fields are Brisbane’s own, and in their ‘scuzzy’ take on the form of taking turns at being the one to emote at you, Cough It Up (Airlock) comes at you with a matter-of-factness that speaks of #Straya. Former ‘Finger and current Church guitarist Ian Haug takes some responsibility for spotting their talent, and produces.

And ‘punk’ remains a word to cover a multitude of sins. WAAX go with giving themselves the sub-genre of ‘vibe-punk’, and turn the anger of the form a bit inward as Marie De Vita’s spiralling tones enter into some critical self-analysis on Same Same (Independent) as she argues with herself and the guitars. The angst of it is genuine and unselfconscious, which removes the pose element that can exist in some others tilling this ground, and you can get caught in the honesty of what they do. The band remembering they’re making a pop song also helps their cause. 

Meanwhile, in Canada ‘punk’ can go for six minutes, as it stares into the void. Duchess Says view of punk probably owes more to the heading-toward-just-a-bit-goth feeling first exampled by something like Siouxsie & The Banshees from back when, as Negative Thoughts (Slovenly Recordings) get caught in layers of guitars and fuzzy keyboard noise that probably owe more to the arty-feeling American musical meaning of the ‘p’ word, rather than the simpler anger as an energy of the original English model. But at least they’re not Offspring, eh?