Metallica became the world's biggest metal band by doing everything right. Then they went and did everything wrong. Their first four records were classic permutations of 1980s thrash: The ferociously raw Kill 'Em All, the increasingly epic Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets, and the toweringly technical ...And Justice for All. Until the latter, Metallica refused to make an MTV video. Self-dubbed "Alcoholica", the band cultivated a blue-collar image. However, on 1991's eponymous album (aka "The Black Album"), they went mainstream with radio-friendly ballads, losing old fans but gaining millions of new ones.

Since then, Metallica have been a comedy of errors. Load and ReLoad wallowed in hard rock dreck. The front of Garage Inc., a covers collection, found Metallica awkwardly costumed as auto mechanics to appear as the everymen they once were. S&M was an overwrought collaboration with a symphony. The band sued Napster, earning the scorn of fans. 2003's St. Anger was laughably bad. The documentary film Some Kind of Monster luridly aired the band's dirty laundry. Singer/guitarist James Hetfield and bassist Robert Trujillo were recently photographed shopping at Armani. Such antics have kept Metallica in the headlines, and not necessarily to their benefit. The anticipation for Death Magnetic has split along two lines: hope for a return to form, and schadenfreude.

The album fulfills neither expectation. It tries mightily to recapture Metallica's former glory, but only does so partially. Producer Rick Rubin told the band to write the unwritten half of Master of Puppets, a ludicrous proposition. But his intent was well-meaning: get rich, fortysomething rockers to recall themselves as hungry, twentysomething metallers. In the real world, this is called a midlife crisis. One can emulate one's younger self, but one can't unlearn one's years.

So it is with Death Magnetic. Self-plagiarization abounds. "That Was Just Your Life" and "Cyanide" harken back to "Blackened" from ...And Justice for All. "The Day That Never Comes" has the clean tones of "Fade to Black" and the machine gun riff from "One". In the 1980s, Metallica wrote hundreds of riffs without repeating themselves. To hear them so bereft of new ideas is disheartening. So is the fact that Load, ReLoad, and St. Anger are indelibly part of their bloodstream. "The End of the Line" and "The Judas Kiss" have bland hard rock riffs à la Load and ReLoad. Like most sequels, the turgid "The Unforgiven III" need not have been made. "Cyanide" tapes a Stone Temple Pilots riff to a disastrous stop-start section straight out of St. Anger. Metallica aren't good at being bluesy or unpredictable. They're best at heavy metal thunder, and they've forgotten that.

Rubin's bone-dry production negates this thunder, but it evokes Metallica's garage band days. These are their most energetic performances in ages. Guitarist Kirk Hammett hasn't ever sounded this vital. While he languished solo-less in St. Anger, he's all over Death Magnetic with fiery leads. They often reprise his old ones, but their wah-fueled intensity is a welcome antidote to their underlying riffs. Hetfield has mostly dropped his bluesy yowl in favor of singing in tune. Trujillo adds solid, supportive low end. Drummer Lars Ulrich is the one weak link. He often resorts to simple oompah beats when complementary or counter-rhythms are necessary. But despite his lack of creativity, he plays the hell out of his drums, aided by a harsh, crunchy sound that renders his cymbals incredibly sibilant.

All the energy in the world can't save these songs, however. They're each about two minutes too long. Most top seven minutes in length; the instrumental "Suicide & Redemption" lasts 10 minutes but feels interminable. Prime Metallica had long songs, but they ebbed and flowed, skillfully playing with layers. These songs, in contrast, merely string together riffs. Clean tones invade "The End of the Line" without warning; many songs have intros that are apropos of nothing. Death Magnetic is essentially St. Anger with better riffs.

The band may be more mentally stable now, but it's irreparably damaged. Years of simplistic hard rock have destroyed its sense of speed. Even the thrashy "My Apocalypse" feels clunky. Hetfield's lyrics are toilet-grade; his younger self, while brash, would never have written tripe like "Mangled flesh, snapping spines/ Dripping bloody valentine/ Shattered face, spitting glass." Ever since The Black Album, his lyrics have been embarrassingly personal. Once Metallica became vulnerable, they never recovered. Death Magnetic is a meditation on death-- but so is every other Metallica record. The best ones spit in the face of death; this album instead finds aging men trying to reclaim their youth.

My Ratings: i'll give 4,9 of 5 stars