The Day That Never Comes

If you're unfamiliar (as I was until last night), this is the name of the first Metallica demo. If you're interested, you can find it on Metallica's home page or on the radio. With every new Metallica song I listen to, I can't help but compare it to Megadeth's most recent effort, United Abominations in terms of speed and heaviness. So here are das impressions:

• It's a damn near 8 minute song that, while a very good listen, just doesn't give me that blast to the past that was claimed by the band. It could just be that this song isn't super-fast, of course. It's a bit on the heavy side musically (later in the song) but every track on UA would trump this.
• I was really hoping that the first single out of these guys was going to show up all the naysayers. I don't really see that it will have that effect. It sounds very St. Anger era but has the potential to be an awesome live song. Lots of clean, moderate guitar and a good vocal melody.
  
• The last 2 minutes, as stated by many, are really great to listen to. I loved Kirk's solo and look forward to hearing some great stuff on the album. Harmonies rock too.
• It could just be the sound quality (low) from the stream but the song itself seems to just lack in power. I'll peg it up to the low quality of the stream and make a final decision when the album releases.

All of this is from listening twice. On this second listen (which I am doing as I speak) it's doing a good job of growing on me. That certainly means a lot because there are really 3 kinds of songs to me: songs I instantly attach to, songs that grow on me, and songs I just can't stand. I'd rather the new Metallica songs be in that first category as just about all of their previous material has.