Is James Hetfield Appearing on Heart’s New Album?
Earlier today (May 28), we learned that Metallica's long-awaited new record is entering the final stages. Now, as it turns out, we may get to hear more from James Hetfield, as a guest on Heart's Beautiful Broken which will be released July 8.
There has been no official press release about the album, but Amazon's pre-order link confirms the title and the date, while Elusive Disc mentions, without confirmation, the contributions of both Hetfield and R&B star Ne-Yo. There's no word as to whether Hetfield sings and/or plays guitar.
An interview Nancy Wilson did with Music Aficionado earlier this month says that it blends new songs with re-recordings of some early '80s tracks, citing two -- "Sweet Darlin'" and "Down on Me" -- from 1980's Bebe le Strange, and another two -- "Johnny Moon" and "Language of Love" from 1983's Passionworks. She says that they decided to redo these songs because they were originally "lost in translation."
"Honestly, there was kind of a lot of drug use going on in those days," she said. "One of the producers was pretty much hitting bottom on cocaine when we did a few of these songs. And it sounded like that. You could hear it in the vocals, too—it's not a relaxed interpretation or a conversation. It's more like, 'I'm proving it to you...now!' That kind of approach. A little pushy sounding. So, really, one of my favorite things about what we just finished doing in the studio was that we gave a couple of these songs another chance, another life. We had to love them back into existence."
Wilson also mentioned two other songs, "Sand," which was first recorded for their Lovemongers side project, and "Heaven," from their 2003 DVD Alive in Seattle, as being on Beautiful Broken. The title track is a re-recording of a bonus cut from their last effort, 2012's Fanatic. In a recent post on the band's blog, Nancy praised her sister Ann's vocals, especially the many ways she sings "Yeah," on several of the songs.
Dutch fan site Heartlinker has pieced together information suggesting that two songs from 1982's Private Audition, "City's Burning" and "One World," were tracked, and that the two new songs are "Two" and "I Jump." Six weeks ago, Heart tweeted a preview of one of the tracks.
Heart Albums Ranked Worst to Best