Party Like It's 1999 (or 1993)

I had a longer drive than usual to my family's Thanksgiving dinner this past weekend, due to the fact that my parents are now happy retirees living in Tioga County, PA rather than Berks County, PA. Fortunately, I had good company for the ride--new albums by bands I used to listen to growing up: Guns 'N Roses, AC/DC, and Metallica. The latter two were and still are two of my favorite bands ever (Metallica's godawful "St. Anger" notwithstanding), and although I wouldn't count G'n'R in the "favorite" category, I usually don't turn the radio off when their songs come on. The results--well, they were pretty much as I thought they'd be before giving them a listen.

Best Overall Album: Metallica - Death Magnetic
Wow, these guys are back in a big, big way. Following the aforementioned piece of crap St. Anger with this is reminiscent of the New York Football Giants winning the Super Bowl last year after losing their first two games in embarassing fashion. This album has a retro thrash-metal feel, getting back to the long, epic songs Metallica was famous for in the '80s. There's even an instrumental composition--they haven't had one of those since "...And Justice For All" (not counting "Ecstasy of Gold" on "S&M"). Even the song I expected to suck (The Unforgiven III--songs don't need sequels, and they definitely don't need second sequels) didn't.

Best Songs: AC/DC - Black Ice
This one was exactly what I expected: fifteen new AC/DC songs with the same great sound this band has always had. You could take any one of these tracks, tack it onto the end of a copy of Back in Black, hand it to a non-AC/DC fan, and they wouldn't know it didn't belong. Great car songs that will be staying on my iPod for a long time to come.

Most Improved: Guns 'N Roses - Chinese Democracy
This group really shouldn't be called Guns 'N Roses anymore--more like "Axl and Friends", since he's the only member left. That aside, there were a lot of songs here that I really dug. Certainly not good enough to justify 15 years of production, but not bad. A very "modern" sound compared to a lot of early G'n'R stuff that hasn't aged particularly well. (Can anyone make it through a complete listening of "Patience" without changing the dial or hitting fast-forward? Didn't think so.)

These are all worth a listen, but ranking them is more a matter of personal preference than anything else. For me, I'll stick with the new Metallica, but would recommend any of these people like me who were fans of these bands in the '80s and '90s.