Lars Ulrich Calls '72 Seasons' Their 'Covid Lockdown Record'
Bay-area titans METALLICA recently (Nov 28) unleashed a new song and video for 'Lux Æterna' along with the release date of their new record, '72 Seasons'. The long-awaited album is set to drop on April 23, 2023 via Blackened Recordings. The 12-track album with the length of 77 minutes was produced by Greg Fidelman and James Hetfiled and is the 1st release since 'Hardwired...to Self-Destruct' (2016). The band's newest music video & 1st single for 'Lux Æterna' was directed by Tim Saccentl (DEPECHE MODE, KORN).
On Monday (November 28, 2022) Lars Ulrich joined Sirius XM's Howard Stern Show to promote the band's newest material and the up coming tour. "We've been working on a new album for the last year, year and a half — our COVID lockdown record. And the one thing that we've done all through that is for the first time in our career, we never really talked about it. So, rather than, 'Hey, there's a new record' and countdowns, and, 'Guess what's coming your way,' and all that kind of shit, we've been tight-fucking-lipped about it. And this morning I wanna share a new song with the world and I wanna tell everybody about the new METALLICA album. And we have a new tour, we have a song, we have a video — all the bells and whistles."
"We thought for sure this thing would leak," he said. "It hasn't fucking leaked."
Regarding METALLICA's future tour plans: "We're announcing a two-year world tour. We have all the dates for '23 and '24 ready to go. We're coming to a city near you. We're playing two nights in every city, playing two completely different shows. So you buy one ticket for two shows — a Friday and a Sunday — and you get what's called a no-repeat weekend, which, obviously, is an old radio term. You get two one hundred percent completely different and unique shows."
Two-day tickets for "M72" will be on sale Friday, December 2. Single day tickets will be available beginning January 20.
James Hetfield commented on a separate press release: "'72 seasons'. The first 18 years of our lives that form our true or false selves. The concept that we were told 'who we are' by our parents. A possible pigeonholing around what kind of personality we are. I think the most interesting part of this is the continued study of those core beliefs and how it affects our perception of the world today. Much of our adult experience is re-enactment or reaction to these childhood experiences. Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry."