Metallica to begin new album soon

Frontman James Hetfield has spoken about Metallica's next album, saying work will probably start early next year.

In a recent interview with Oakland Press, Hetfield discussed the follow-up to 'Death Magnetic' and the band's eagerness to get writing.

"Hopefully it happens soon," Hetfield said. "I'm itchin'. We have tons of material to sift through. That takes a lot of time, because there's a lot of great stuff. I know we only need a few songs, but there's 800 riffs we're going through. It's kind of insane. We have sifted through a lot of the stuff and pulled the cream of the crop — it's just sitting there waiting for us to take it to the next level."

Getting a bit more specific, he added: "I know we do need to decompress after this, get this film thing out of our systems. It's taken up a lot of time and a lot of effort. We go full-throttle into something and multitasking is not what we're after. So the next record will hopefully start some time in the spring".

Let's hope the new album is worth the wait and doesn't turn out to be another Lulu. Or St. Anger.