News

After months of video updates and speculation, Metallica has finally confirmed the remaining details behind their ninth studio album, Death Magnetic. (Well, everything but its release date. Right now, it's pegged for sometime in September.) Aside from wrapping up the record's tracklisting, the heavy-metal icons shared its album art: an open grave surrounded by the band's logo and what appears to be a thumbprint (or abstract squiggly lines).

In an interview with VG TV last week, frontman James Hetfield explained some of the record's concepts, saying, "It started out as kind of a tribute to people that have fallen in our business, like (Alice in Chains singer) Layne Staley and a lot of the people that have died, basically—rock 'n' roll martyrs of sorts … The concept that we're all gonna die sometimes is over-talked about and then a lot of times never talked about. No one wants to bring it up—it's the big white elephant in the living room. But we all have to deal with it at some point."

Indeed. In less dire news, all of the tracks on Metallica's new album will be available to download for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock the day of its release.

Death Magnetic tracklisting:

1. That Was Just Your Life
2. The End Of The Line
3. Broken, Beat & Scarred
4. The Day That Never Comes
5. All Nightmare Long
6. Cyanide
7. The Unforgiven III
8. The Judas Kiss
9. Suicide & Redemption
10. My Apocalypse

—The ARTISTdirect Staff
07.23.08