Metallica are benchmark musicians in their own right and fans are waiting patiently for the band's tenth studio album following their 2008's release of Death Magnetic. Guitarist Kirk Hammett tells Billboard that progress for album completion is at about 25-30%.
Metallica are notable for giving their audience quality music since their formation back in 1981 and with nine Grammy awards under their belt and consecutively debuting five albums at the top of Billboard 200, Metallica's much awaited album is definitely an anticipation worth waiting for.
Billboard recently spoke with guitarist Kirk Hammett regarding their progress of the album's completion. Hammett gives us a run-down of their progress thus far:
"The songs are ever-changing at this point. Nothing is etched in stone. We still have a lot of material have to sift through, still. We have well over a dozen songs and we still have well over two or three hundred riffs, too, so it's hard to say at what point we actually are in in the project. I don't think we hit the middle point yet. I would say we're at the 25 percent point, maybe 30 percent point. It's hard to say, but I mean we are working on it and there are songs and we're making plans to write more songs and record."
Last March, Rolling Stone had a chance to speak with drummer Lars Ulrich about the nitty-gritty details that the band is currently working on. Ulrich encourages fans to be patient in giving the band time to fully cultivate their work, stating that they will not "do one of those things where we'll just give it to iTunes on Thursday without telling anybody", referring to a surprise release likened to U2's Songs of Innocence. Ulrich emphasized that creating a studio album takes up a lot of the band's time in order to get things just right, a notable quality in the band's push to create an album worth waiting for.
Metallica have scheduled a handful of shows to take place this year including a night in Las Vegas this May, and a headline night in the 30-year celebration of the original Rock in Rio taking place in September at the City of Rock in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
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