Lars Ulrich named the Metallica album that left him least “bewildered” in terms of what the band were thinking during the recording process.
The drummer has previously said that each record is a moment in time, and he wouldn’t change anything. But he allowed that he sometimes asked himself what had been going through their minds when they made certain decisions – notably the controversial mix of …And Justice for All, which left the bass lines difficult to make out.
In a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Ulrich identified 2016’s Hardwired… to Self-Destruct as the album he was most clear about. “Each record to me is a picture of a time period,” he said. “…And Justice For All, that was what we did and we made all those choices, and I’m happy accepting it. Sometimes I think, ‘Why did we do that?’ and, ‘What were we thinking?’ without necessarily wanting to change it.” He added: “But of the ones that we’ve done, it’s with Hardwired that I have the fewest bewildered questions about the choices we made.”
Ulrich went on to confirm that the band’s 12th studio album was in the works, but cautioned: “There’s nothing cohesive. There’s not a story. There’s not really anything to back it up yet.”
The drummer joked that the next LP will be “the best album that we’ve ever done… the heaviest thing, the coolest.” “But all kidding aside, if it wasn’t because we thought that the best record was still ahead of us, then why keep doing it?” he continued. “In Metallica we love the creative process, and it’s hard for me to imagine that we’ll ever stop making records.”
Metallica Albums Ranked
There are moments of indecision when compiling this gallery of Metallica Albums, Ranked Worst to Best. After all, we really could have had – for the first time ever – a three-way tie for first.