Metallica New Album: 10 Old-School Thrash Lessons They Need To Relearn

Over the years, Lars Ulrich has always likened the construction of Metallica songs to a skyscraper. For as great as some of the songs may be, most of the time the band takes a few riffs and just jams them all together until a song is completed. It's an admirable task, but it might be better to focus on the song first and the riff second.

Granted, the band did try the more compositional mindset on tracks like "Nothing Else Matters" and "The Unforgiven," but neither of those songs are the type of thrash metal of their early years.

If anyone taught Metallica how to focus on a complete musical song rather than a riff-o-rama, it was not Bob Rock...it was Cliff Burton. After joining the band, Cliff fleshed out his ideas to turn them into fantastic compositions like "Orion," which could work to Metallica's advantage should they decide to go that route.

While the previous two albums have shown Metallica trying to return to their roots, the sensory overload of one riff after another might be improved if they cut it down to 8 or 9 solid tracks. It's important to give the people what they want, but if the songwriting is improved upon, it may be easier to have quality over quantity.