Heavy Metal Album Review : Lulu - Metallica & Lou Reed

Metallica & Lou Reed - Lulu (Warner Bros, Vertigo)

Released 31/10/11
Rating: 1.5/5

Experimentation in music has to be encouraged, in fact despite arguments over who was the first, it is a fact that metal wouldn’t even exist if people hadn’t explored and pushed the boundaries, so despite the proliferation of negativity surrounding this release I was determined to approach this with an open mind. This might explain why it’s taken me a while to get round to reviewing it, to be honest I was scared by what I might hear...

Well I’ve bitten the bullet so to speak and well, erm, hmmmm, track one down and I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be frowning and grimacing while listening to one of my favourite bands. Still maybe track two, oh that would be “The View” the very track that had fostered my hesitance to listen to the album, still surely onwards and upwards...

...so I’m going to skip the track my track review here because my reaction is pretty much the same for all of them. It’s hard to call this a collaboration as far from complimenting each other the spoken word vocal style of Lou Reed and the, how to put this nicely, “different” musical arrangement seem to jar against each other as if everything was recorded separately and then just shoved into the same track with no real thought behind it. The lyrical content reminds me of sitting in an “old man’s pub” and listening to the local drunk ramble.

I am really struggling to find something good to say about this album, and being perfectly honest the extra 0.5 on the rating is just because it would break my heart to have to give Metallica just a 1 out of 5! Here’s a sentence I never thought I would ever say... This Metallica album makes St Anger seem like a good Metallica album! Alright maybe that is going a tad too far but you get the picture

Still to finish on a positive note at least it’s the Black Album that Metallica have just announced they will play in it's entirety at Download next year and not this... well if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all!

Track Listing:

Disc One:
1. The Brandenburg Gate
2. The View
3. Pumping Blood
4. Mistress Dead
5. Iced Honey
6. Cheat on Me

Disc Two:
7. Frustration
8. Little Dog
9. Dragon
10. Junior Dad