EP Review- Metallica: Beyond Magnetic

Beyond Magnetic is an EP by American Thrash/Heavy Metal band Metallica and was released in 2011. It contained four cuts that did not make Death Magnetic but in my opinion they easily all could have. I like just about everything Metallica has done with Reload being the only record i could not get into i even liked Lulu!!!! But lets talk about this ep.

Track Rundown

1.Hate Train-Right off the bat you will notice that for demos these have damn well production. The title is cheesy yes but the song has amazing riffs especially the one right before the verses kick in. I appreciate Metallica taking more thrash influences back into their sound i really appreciate this song.

2.Just A Bullet Away- I like the palm muting downpick riffing here and James' voice sounds pretty good the whole band sounds pretty tight the slow part is pretty cool very reminiscent of Master Of Puppets to me but this song takes more of a traditional kind of metal sound to it being more of a headbanging song than a mosh and stagedive track but pretty good overall. Also, an interesting fact James played the solos on this song which is pretty cool.

3.Hell And Back- A really groovy riff kicks in here after the cool slow intro. Even with just four songs there are tons of riffs on this ep to go crazy too i really like the chorus on this track as well. There is a weird kind of mainstream sounding feel here but it doesn't make for a bad song. the fast part really gets me going too it pushes out alot of power through James and Kirks guitars.

4.Rebel Of Babylon-This 8 minute epic surely is one to be reckoned with any of the complex tracks featured on ...And Justice For All. This song probably is the thrashiest and even sounds like a Mercyful Fate song after Hetfields wail into the chorus. This is definitely my favorite track on this EP it shows Metallica today giving it all they got and i really wish this made it onto Death Magnetic with a bit higher production on it.

Overall i give this ep a 9.5 out of 10. you would think with a bunch of demos they would be more of throw away tracks but honestly it baffles me how Metallica left these off their 2008 monster. they are insanely heavy and catchy and since the band isdue for a new album in 2015 i hope they pull out something like these tracks.