It’s not every day that Metallica releases an album. In fact, if we’re going by studio albums, it’s only happened 10 times. Today is one of them, and Hardwired… To Self Destruct is out now! We’re more than a little psyched about it for a bunch of reasons. First of all, it’s actually a really good album! Secondly, we have a video for every single song on the album. Most bands would make maybe two videos, then have a cheesy lyric video (we can admit that almost all lyric videos are cheesy, right?). Not these guys, they made a baker’s dozen of big-budget music videos (the album, plus “Lords of Summer”). And really, what we’re most excited about is that this is a win for metal in general. Metallica is the biggest rock band of our generation. Record sales certainly aren’t what they used to be, but these guys keep selling. A release this big for any artist is a watershed moment, and the fact that it’s a metal band doing it is phenomenal.

So yes, most of the coverage today is going to be Metallica-centric. We’ll look at the album’s artwork, rank the best videos from the new album, debate over what our favorite post-Black Album record is, and more. If you haven’t picked up Hardwired… To Self Destruct yet, you can do that here.