Band:	Metallica
Album:	Lulu [Collaboration]
Style:	Alternative metal
Release date:	October 31, 2011
Guest review by:	ScreamingSteelUS

Disc I
01. Brandenburg Gate
02. The View
03. Pumping Blood
04. Mistress Dread
05. Iced Honey
06. Cheat On Me

Disc II
01. Frustration
02. Little Dog
03. Dragon
04. Junior Dad

The worst thing you can possibly do is treat this like a Metallica album. It is not. Lulu is a Lou Reed album that just so happens to feature the guys from Metallica as his backing band. Of course, Metallica still had to go and put their name on it, which recklessly raised people's expectations, and the heavy criticism weighed at this album is largely true no matter how you spin it. Nonetheless, while this was a disappointment, it is not totally devoid of merit, and more of an interesting experiment than a Son-of-St. Anger-sized failure.

Despite what you might think after hearing the endless jokes about Lou Reed's senile mumbling, his voice actually suits the music very well. It is James Hetfield's singing that is the problem; when he comes in, he breaks the trance-like atmosphere that Lou Reed's mesmerizingly off-kilter, off-beat, and out-of-tune ravings create, making the complex theatricality of the lyrics seem embarrassingly pretentious. Frankly, he does a worse job of singing than Reed, whose voice perfectly mirrors the confused and disjointed sound of the music. Fortunately, Hetfield's vocal parts are few and far between. I have neither understanding of nor patience for the hoity-toity literary concepts Lulu is supposed to embody, and I find it hard to believe that anyone in the world cares, but understanding is not essential to the listening experience.

Unfortunately, the album commences on a low note, with Metallica bulldozing through an otherwise lovely Lou Reed rock'n'roll song with all the subtlety and proper intonation of a high school grindcore band. Once "Brandenburg Gate" passes, though, the band falls much more into sync behind Reed. There are some moments throughout of actual thrash, and while they are nothing particularly extraordinary or innovative, they are welcome. "The View" does, in fact, possess a pretty cool riff. Get past the idiotic bits about tables and it becomes a real song, and a legitimately good one at that. Much of this album is instrumental, with simple, repetitive riffs sometimes accompanied by feedback or other atonal noise effects. An atmosphere of despondent desolation and spacey depression grips songs like "Dragon," "Mistress Dread," and "Pumping Blood," which are the album's standout tracks.

This album could have been better. Metallica's sound does not gel perfectly with Lou Reed's, and James and Lars sound like they are trying far too hard to be the centerpiece instead of Reed, the true creative director. I'm not the biggest Lou Reed fan in the world, but I have listened to enough of his music to recognize how much this album truly belongs to him, and that has helped me appreciate it a lot more. Maybe this was not the best collaboration in the world, but it was hardly the worst, and the end result is pretty enjoyable if you have patience.

Yeah, yeah, James Hetfield is still the table. It isn't that bad.