They can't top Death Magnetic. They had lots of pressure into releasing a good album after St. Anger, and they wanted to swallow the whole world and scream "Hey! Metallica's back!". They were kinda successful, their world tour supporting Death Magnetic was great and fans became invested in the band once again. Now, this was 5 years ago. The weak flame that was again burning in the hearts of Metallica fans now was completely extinguished, given momentum by Lars Ulrich's horrible drumming, Kirk's mediocre soloing and Hetfield's fading voice. All that remains is nostalgia and memory. The Memory Remains olol.
True, they're grown ups now. Happily married men with families, and nowadays Hetfield instead of insulting the audience and throwing f-bombs anywhere he could now addresses the audience as the Metallica family, "you love Metallica, and Metallica loves you", the power of the heart, among other heartfelt things. Truth is that, I enjoyed Metallica more when they were aggressive as fuck, which really translated into powerful live performances. I'm happy for the guys, and I'm grateful they still have plans of making new music and sticking around for a while and playing concerts, but I did enjoy more the fury-driven band that changed my perspective of metal. Metallica should record this album, get out all what's left of their creative minds, and start waving their good-byes.