There's a concept called Hauntology, it's got a lot of waft about it, but one basic way of describing it is nostalgia for lost futures. Like how the present day, instead of having space travel and the end of scarcity and travel to Mars and shit there's cops shooting black dudes like the 60s never left, the planet is getting cooked and Bezos is racking up billions like it's pocket change while other people die because they can't afford insulin.
Mark Fisher wrote a good book on it. Anyway, you can kinda apply the concept to Metallica, sorta, and on S&M2 it's here in full view.
S&M2 gets me nostalgic for a non existent time when Metallica did the Loads (maybe it happened after AJFA, the self titled, whatever) and then realized that they had money enough for seven lifetimes and went right off the deep end, releasing stranger and stranger albums, the fanbase steadily leaving them, the band caring less and less etc. In this lost future Metallica haven't played Enter Sandman for 20 years, and Frayed Ends of Sanity is now 30 minutes long and takes up half their set. What I'm getting at here (in as slow and pretentious a manner as possible) is that the weirder stuff on S&M2 is really interesting, not always GOOD (All Within My Hands, the one good St Anger gets thoroughly ruined by an acoustic treatment) but at least interesting, and it's nice to imagine what coulda been if they'd embraced it a bit more, if Metallica weren't so committed to going down their safe but rather unsatisfying late career trajectory.
The upright bass version of Pulling Teeth is far more interesting than the original, it's not perfect but it is quite cool, Unforgiven III's symphonic makeover is both a bit awkward, kinda neat, genuinely heartfelt and unlike anything these guys have done. Halo on Fire was perhaps the best choice from Hardwired and works great. Outlaw Torn and Ktulu are the two best really really long songs these dudes have ever done, the former benefiting maybe more than any other tune from the symphony's extra colour and depth; both these marvelous, sweeping soundscapes and it's nice they're back again for the 2nd S&M. None of these tunes are gonna be competing with Justice For All as far as playcounts go but that's fine. They're trying new shit, they're not just treading water. Iron Foundry a very cool idea as well, with Metallica accompanying the orchestra, instead of the other way around.
The rest, well. You've got Enter Sandman for the millionth time. It's exactly how you imagine it, more or less. Same with One, the double bass steadily getting worse throughout the years, and a very not good arrangement that strips much of the tension from the cold, calculated original. Picking Confusion and The Day That Never Comes for the gig is a real headscratcher when Spit out The Bone doesn't get a roll in; both deep cuts that no one feels all that strongly for, might as well've include some Reload obscuros while we're here. I'm not convinced I'm musical enough to really critique the orchestral arrangements but there's problems here too. The old Kamen ones from S&M are definitely more interesting than the S&M2-only ones, which tend to just flirt around the edges of the songs and often just disappear into the mix. That said it's a shame that (from what I can tell) the Kamen ones are more or less here with no alterations. Yeah, Outlaw Torn sounds great with the Kamen arrangement. MoP and Roam and particular One sound like garbage. Why not change it up a bit?
Why not write a few songs designed to fit with an orchestra? Spend a year or two with a composer, you guys are Metallica, you can afford that shit. You can have a composer on your payroll and you wouldn't notice it. Why not fuck off Sandman, which didn't work all that great the first time, and put a cooler, riskier choice in? It's fair to say that S&M2 is a fans only release, very much so, which makes the amount of predictable, boring hits such a head scratcher.
Overall, the whole package is a bit of a blue balls kinda deal. Good production, the artwork is decent. As much a frustrating 'what could've been' kinda experience as anything. File under fans only kinda thing.
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December 3, 2020:
Audio recordings from Metallica’s Helping Hands Concert on Nov. 14th are NOW AVAILABLE. Thanks to fan support, Metallica's Helping Hands event raised over $1.3 million for All Within My Hands and their beneficiaries! Thanks again for being a part of Metallica's first-ever livestream pay-per-view and contributing to the foundation.
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