I'm loving the production though. A huge Step up from Death Magnetic.
I'd be happy with a new studio album from Metallica that sounded as good as this.
But yeah - James sounds phenomenal.
Yeah, this was my big takeaway from listening to that... If Metallica released a new full length album that sounded like that, I'd be pretty darn happy. It was full, thick, heavy and there was actually some nice vocal production here and there.
I could hear the bass, which is never a given on Metallica recordings! The guitars sounded fuller, thicker and seemed to have greater impact than they did on DM. The drum sound still wasn't great on this, but it was certainly better than it was on DM when half of the drum hits would clip! James' vocals on this recording sounded much, much better than they did on DM, which I think is a combination of two things: (1) James is singing great right now, his live voice has been fantastic lately, and (2) they actually included some reverb, some echos, some nice harmonies and layering in the vocal tracks rather than just a dry melody line.