S&M 2 DISCUSSION (SHOW/HOME RELEASE etc)

I hated that track. Especially Kirk's guitar.

Man you guys weren't kidding about the Bellz clip.
Those split screens were terrible....just done badly.

Is it possible on the dvd to keep one camera locked in?

The best? An up-close view of Lars' face it is.

I am not that thrilled about the arrival of the S&M 2 DVD, to be honest. I was super excited when it was announced the band woud be playing with the orchestra again, let alone when those two days finally came: I was checking the clips on youtube, following the thread(s) on the official boards and later went to see the concert on the big screen.

With that amount of "spoilers" in the past year the event lost its magic a bit for me, despite the new mixing and all. I guess this is what happens in this day and age -- there's little room to be surprised like back in the day.

It's on my Spotify, right now and I gotta say that CD rip was shit. It's even more clear in here. 

Loving Outlaw, better than 99, this will get a lot of listens. The rest kinda forgettable but will give it a couple more plays.

Thoughts on the mix...just like the Hardwired album, the snare feeks like the highest thing in the mix to the point of it being really distracting and over bearing. Symphony too low in places, guitars too low in others. But always the snare over the top of everything.

Halo On Fire is very good. The last 2-3 minutes are beautiful as usual.

All things considered I think James sounds better now than he did in 99 (which I guess is a controversial opinion), so I'm enjoying the reused songs from S&M1 even if I would have preferred new ones.

No Leaf Clover is the clear exception here. The original had touched-up vocals so it makes sense.

The original No Leaf Clover vocals are straight from the studio, apart from (curiously enough) some of the last repeats of "then it comes to be", which are actually live. You can hear the ambiance shift quite clearly even on the album, and very clearly on the DVD/with the isolated vocals.

S&M2 I'm pretty sure is all live and I think James did an alright job overall. The growl is definitely there and he avoids the awful wailing he did on the original almost entirely. True, most of the songs they did you can quite easily find more solid live versions of from 2018, but that's just how it is with live takes.

Feels like they're not too heavy on the autotune either, although I'm almost certain that's just because modern autotune is scary good compared to its primitive form in '99 where it hurt my ears with how obvious it is all over that album.

After a proper listen today, and a few distracted listens while working yesterday, my final thoughts:

Outlaw is incredible, the definitive version. The vocals are so much better than 1999 and are almost as good as the album version. Day, Clover, Halo, and AWMH are fantastic. Ktulu, Bells, Memory are great, better performances than S&M1. Confusion is surprisingly good and works really well with the symphony. Iron Foundry, Unforgiven 3 and Anesthesia are good, but I'll likely not listen to them very often.

Moth, despite being one of the best crafted Metallica songs in 20 years, is completely forgettable with the symphony. Apart from the really cool flute (maybe?) melody in the second and final verses, it's just the symphony mirroring some of the riffs throughout the song, or at other times just sitting silent (but maybe that's just the mix). It's not bad or anything, it's just a live version of Moth with occasionally the symphony in the background.

As an album, it takes a hit in the second half, with the 5 min talking track, the non-Metallica songs, the James+symphonoy Unforgiven 3, Anesthesia...all the stuff that would have been really great to see live in person, but on a live album doesn't have too much replayability. Then you have the greatest hits bunched together at the end. The second half isn't bad, it's a combination of really niche listens and the hits we've heard a million times, which the symphony doesn't add much too IMO (except NEM, which Lars' repeated snare fills ruin for me in this performance). AWMH is the standout here, I love it.

The mix - Just like on HWTSD the snare is way too fucking loud. But it's worse on here than HWTSD. It's really annoying, distracting and overbearing. Het's guitar is too low throughout the whole show. And in some moments in some songs it's like the symphony aren't playing at all because they just aren't present in the mix.

I underestimated how much I would like this album! I imagine I'll listen to the first half in full fairly often. I know I'll listen to Outlaw specifically a lot, and I'll probably go to this release when I want to listen to Ktulu, Day, Clover, Confusion, and Halo. I don't see myself really going back to the second half aside from AWMH and the occasional spin of Iron Foundry or Anesthesia.

I'll actually echo the second half vs. first half thing. I do feel like the album feels a lot more cohesive listening to it now versus the leak but even then I did notice how awkward the pacing was with all the "specialty" tracks being clumped together followed by the hits. Also yeah, the mix isn't great either. It's passable but it has all the modern Metallica production issues like the snare thing or how the drum sound in general appears to be entirely achieved using samples.

Overall I'd say it's alright. I probably won't come back to it all that often but there were some real gems in the first half, and that's good enough for me.

What's up with that guy singing in AWMH? Did Rob and Kirk not live up to James' standards LoL? Did Kirk cry when the decision was made final?

If you want to find out more about him, he was interviewed on Metal Up Your Podcast recently. He also performed with them on Howard Stern.