When Death Magnetic started leaking, “All Nightmare Long” provided us with a helpful pun about the general quality of Metallica’s newest effort. Another song ripe for meta commentary’s “The Day That Never Comes,” because a number of these Death tracks are pretty fucking endless. Case in point: “All Nightmare Long.” It’s accompanying video is a faux scientific/militaristic communist documentary about the 1908 Tunguska explosion in Russia. This gigantic (to put it lightly) explosion did happen, but Metallica weave in a tale about spores emerging from the ash that allow for the “revival of organisms,” e.g. you inject a dead cat and then watch kitty Lazarus wake up (or, less dramatically, you can heal someone’s wound). “The spore is the key to the struggle of our revolution.” It’s an interesting angle on a historical moment — one that already has people hypothesizing about UFO’s, comets, antimatter, and black holes — but it ends up being about as interesting as watching those magic spores grow into mushrooms. Actually, the filming, animation (zombies! robots!), and later special effects are well done. You get to see a steak do the worm. And the last shots are genuinely creepy. It’s not the video’s fault at all, really — it’s the song that blows.
Death Magnetic is out via Warner Bros.
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I actually enjoyed this……..the video, not the song.
Really cool video, even cooler song.
is that bald dude in the tie james hetfield?
i didn’t care for the song very much, but i did like the video, particularly the animated portion. does anyone know the artist?
The director’s name is Roboshobo and he is amazing!
Nerdish Tendencies Revealed:
Anyone else notice that if you were to replace the Soviets with the US and the “Umbrella Corp” in this video, this is almost precisely the plot of Resident Evil 4? The video game, that is. Resident Evil 4 is a little more Spanish Civil War-era based (although it takes place in the present), rather than WWII, but the plots are very similar.
Not that RE4 originated the idea, maybe they were both inspired by the same something else.
Nice Planet Terror vibe. Coolest video I’ve seen all year. That was some questionable looking CGI on that Lazarus cat, though.
Epic. One of the best things I’ve seen in 2008. I love the ending, the silence, the linking of “chem trails” to the spores. It’s creepy. I would like to have seen this before Halloween.
I did enjoy this, and it reminded me very much of another animated video involving apocalyptic war themes by another metal band. Hmm. Remember? http://stereogum.com/archives/video/new-sword-video—fire-lances-of-the-ancient-hyper_008500.html
brandon why you always a hater of band that help spawn the other 100 you like?
I know you got the ears- and love for metal- It’s like dissing your own family- where
is the loyalty man? Ugly blogsphere type shit. Don’t be like the rest- you’re better than
that.
I’m not so much a hater as a longtime fan disappointed by their recent work. I listened to the new material carefully (a number of times) and it feels empty to me. I still listen to the early catalog (a lot) … but there’s so much good metal right now … and Metallica are no longer bringing anything to the genre, even if (I agree) they were instrumental in shaping it.
I think this is the best song on this record. The video was a blast too, not like most gay Metallica video’s.
Im a hard core METALLICA FANATIC! and musician and in my opinion this is the best album they ever did WITHOUT CLIFF! I also believe this is the best video of theirs besides “One”.
So, brandon, are you like, in a band??
This song owns your face!!!
The video is awesome.. And the song is really good too..