Definitely better than Load, Re-Load or St. Shit-Anger... On par with the Black album.
The problem I have with it, are all the stupid bridges. Its like each song is really 2 different songs and they put some crappy bridge between them to tie them together.
The guitar solo's just don't do it for me either. I won't compare it to their old stuff, rather, if you just compare it to any great metal song, it will have guitar solo that you will memorize and "sing" along with the song... Most of the solo's just dont do it, and I've listened to the album a lot.
Hettfield's singing brings it down a 1/2 a notch
It is an addicting album though, and the riff's are pretty tight. I dig songs 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 9 the most, and probably song 9 the most... even though its an instrumental.
Rick Rubin > Bob Rock
-Bal.
