Last week Metallica released “Death Magnetic” and when I reviewed the album I gave it a 7/10 score. Reviewing the album made me realize how difficult it is to be subjective and fair to the band and the audience when working with a band that has a back catalog of several key songs for a given genre.

In my review, I stated the band didn’t break in to any new ground on “Death Magnetic,” despite the incredible musical depth and complexity present in the new material. Metallica may be an example of “being a victim of your own success.” Honestly, it’s only so often that a band writes a tune like “Master of Puppets” that blows the lid off of your impression of contemporary music, only to do it again with “One,” “The Unforgiven,” and “Nothing Else Matters.”

As a lifelong musician and long-time guitarist I’ve accepted the techniques used in the song “Master of Puppets” as something truly original. I recommend that every guitarist learn at least part of the song because it is the instrumental high-point of the metal genre that qualifies the “noise” as “art.”

Unfortunately, Metallica may never again “blow my mind” again like they did with the previously listed songs. The problem is that I want them to.

Metallica is one of the few bands that posses an incredibly strong grasp on the concepts of music theory and composition in contemporary music. Don’t take my word for it though, remember in 1999 when conductor Michael Kamen worked alongside Metallica to accompany several of their tunes with an orchestra? Well, it actually worked and managed to showcase the depth of Metallica’s music.

So how does one go about assessing an album released by a legendary act appropriately? Do they rate the music in comparison to all music, other music in the genre, against the band’s previous work, against the band’s maximum potential, or just by how much they enjoyed the album?

A month ago I reviewed Norma Jean’s “The Anti-Mother” and gave the album an 8/10 and stand by my rating even though I believe “Death Magnetic” is the superior album from a musical construction perspective. However, “The Anti-Mother” is an example of a band highly modifying their art and making it work.

The interpretation of a band’s work is directly effected by the band’s previous work. If Metallica released “Death Magnetic” before “Master of Puppets,” I could easily have the switched opinions about the albums. Metallica could write the perfect thrash-metal album, but if it doesn’t shatter the existing concept of the genre, it will never surpass “Master of Puppets.”

For that reason, I scaled “Master of Puppets” as a perfect 10 and “St. Anger” as a 1 on the 10-scale. I concluded that every other album was a 9 on that scale, so I decided to rethink my scale with “Master of Puppets” as a 10, the black album as a 9, “Load” as a 4 and “ReLoad” as a 2—even “ReLoad” deserves a little lovin’. On that lofty scale, I felt that “Death Magnetic” deserves a 7.

It’s a really good album, but it just doesn’t have the same impact as the band’s 1984-1991 catalog.