In the age of U2 giving albums away for free online, stalwart hard-rockin' juggernauts Metallica have decided to stick to a more traditional route, announcing the forthcoming release of 27 new live albums on compact disc.

The releases, orchestrated as part of ten-year anniversary celebrations for online download site Live Metallica, will be full recordings of their live performances from throughout this year, starting with a triumvirate of South American shows — Bogota, Colombia; Quito, Ecuador; and Lima, Peru — before the next three performances from that leg of their 2014 By Request tour (in Brazil, Paraguay and Chile) are made available.

The CDs will be released each Monday for the next nine weeks, but for true physical-format purists, the band have opened a poll to decide which of the shows should make the extra-special leap to limited-edition 180-gram vinyl — the top four performances will be pressed for order in early 2015.

Don't want to wait for that? The band are also releasing a full-collection box set of all nine weeks' worth of albums once the drip-release is done and dusted — it's scheduled to be released this December, so if you know any Metallica diehards, you might have just sorted out at least one name on your Christmas list.

The By Request 2014 box set — which, admittedly, will set you back more than $400 — is available for pre-order now.