An interesting release, this one. Rather than going for the straightforward single, the Kings Of Heavy Metal dispatch a song from their most recent album, last year's St Anger, backed with a video and six live tracks recorded at Paris when they did three gigs in a day.
As with the rest of St Anger, The Unnamed Feeling's seven-minute length, mega-chugging guitars and plethora of minor chords marks a welcome move away from the dodgy, wimpy rock displayed on albums such as Reload, and back towards to Metallica's mid-1980s thrash roots. Unfortunately, everything you've heard about the production on St Anger is true - it's utterly abysmal. On The Unnamed Feeling Lars Ulrich sounds like he's hitting cans of paint rather than skins. And cans of paint half a mile away from the microphone at that.
So this is possibly the first ever EP where the live tracks sound infinitely more polished than the studio song. There's no denying that the breakneck, blitzkrieg thrash of The Four Horsemen, Motorbreath and Hit The Lights (from 1983's Kill 'Em All debut); Ride The Lightning (the title track of the 1984 follow-up); and Leper Messiah and Damage Inc (from 1986's breakthrough Master Of Puppets) is as thrilling as it is headache-inducing. And hearing James Hetfield graduate from "Mercy Boo-coh!" to "Mercy Boh-coo!" during the course of the concerts adds some unwitting comedy value too. All in all, a value for money release, but for diehards only.
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