Lou Reed & Metallica | Lulu

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by Alissa Ordabai
Staff Writer —

From the very first moment when Lou Reed announces, “I would cut my legs and tits off when I think of Boris Karloff and Kinksy in the dark of the Moon,” you either instantly love or hate this album. The blaring juxtapositions of experimental rock vs. heavy metal, the earthbound aridity vs. kill-them-all spontaneity, the East Coat and the West Coast, between the two different generations and two different raison de’etre at once bewilder and make you realize how many-sided rock music really is – vast, contradictory and paradoxical as America itself.

But no matter how uncomfortable the listening at times becomes, the album is a unique meeting point of two different worldviews and two very different kinds of angst. It is also an attempt to unite the opposite ends of rock culture – New York as opposed to California, the visceral as opposed to the cerebral – to show that the two genres still share one fundamental belief in the courage and the ultimate truth of expressing who you are.

Perhaps tentative and slightly superficial on the part of Metallica – while deadly earnest and calculated on the part of Lou Reed – the album is an attempt to explore the contradictions and the similarities of their inner realities.

At first you get a feeling that Metallica is politely holding back its deadly might by supplying reserved, spare accompaniment to accommodate Reed’s self-exposing revelations. But as the record goes on, the two begin to gel on such highlights as “Iced Honey” and “Junior Dad” – the only two tracks that qualify as actual songs as opposed to a collection of recitatives over minimalist grooves and riffs with occasional backing vocals by Hetfield.

A realist would say that Metallica has given little where Reed has given all he’s got. At a first glance the band indeed doesn’t seem to contribute much in terms of musical ideas, while Reed goes all-out with viscous sincerity of his shocking self-revelations. But an idealist would perhaps say that this Metallica has shown respect to Reed, if not felt slightly taken aback by his spiritual exhibitionism. And a cynic would probably say that this record is something Metallica decided to release while working on other – properly musical – ideas, keep their name in the rock press headlines in between the albums.

Whatever this album is, it is a difficult, demanding listening for a heavy metal fan and a profound new chapter for a certain type of pop-culture intellectual weaned on the 20th century American poetry and its avant-garde idiosyncrasies.

Band:
Lou Reed – guitar, continuum, lead vocals
James Hetfield – rhythm guitar, additional vocals
Kirk Hammett – lead guitar
Robert Trujillo – bass
Lars Ulrich – drums

Additional musicians:
Sarth Calhoun – electronics
Jenny Scheinman – violin, viola, string arrangements
Gabe Witcher – violin
Megan Gould – violin
Ron Lawrence – viola
Marika Hughes – cello
Ulrich Maas – cello on “Little Dog” and “Frustration”
Rob Wasserman – stand up electric bass on “Junior Dad”
Jessica Troy – viola on “Junior Dad”

Track listing:
1. Brandenburg Gate
2. The View
3. Pumping Blood
4. Mistrhhhhess Dread
5. Iced Honey
6. Cheat on Me
7. Frustration
8. Little Dog
9. Dragon
10. Junior Dad

Label: Warner Bros., Vertigo

Online: www.metallica.com; www.loureed.com

Genre: Avant-garde, experimental rock, spoken word

Hardrock Haven rating: 8/10