Metallica returns with new album after six years and two-year long tour

Metallica is making its comeback after six years.

The rock band confirmed the title and release date of its forthcoming 12th studio album 72 Seasons, which will be available April 14th, 2023.

This will be the band’s first full-length collection of new material since 2016’s Hardwired…To Self-Destruct. 

The album will be released under its own Blackened Recordings. Produced by Greg Fidelman with founding members James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, and clocking in at over 77 minutes, the album will consist of 12 tracks, via Variety.

The outlet reported that Metallica dropped the first single from the album, Lux Æterna, a three-and-a-half-minute-long blast that recalls the band’s early albums, which got a big revival with the prominent use of their 1986 classic Master of Puppets in the series Stranger Things earlier this year.

Speaking on the concept of the album title, frontman James Hetfield said that the album will explore many core beliefs and how it affects their perspectives today.

“72 seasons. The first 18 years of our lives that form our true or false selves. The concept that we were told ‘who we are’ by our parents. A possible pigeonholing around what kind of personality we are,” he said.

“I think the most interesting part of this is the continued study of those core beliefs and how it affects our perception of the world today. Much of our adult experience is reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences. Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry.”

The rock band also revealed the titles of the tracks on their forthcoming album.

’72 Seasons’ tracklist:

• 72 Seasons
• Shadows Follow
• Screaming Suicide
• Sleepwalk My Life Away
• You Must Burn!
• Lux Æterna
• Crown of Barbed Wire
• Chasing Light
• If Darkness Had a Son
• Too Far Gone?
• Room of Mirrors
• Inamorata

Moreover, Metallica will also be heading on a two-year long tour in 2023 and 2024.

Per Variety, Presented worldwide by Liquid Death and Blackened American Whiskey (in North America only) and promoted by Live Nation, Metallica’s M72 world tour will see the band playing two nights in every city it visits — with each No Repeat Weekend featuring two completely different setlists and support line-ups.

A portion of proceeds from every ticket sold will go to the band’s All Within My Hands foundation. Founded in 2017, AWMH’s efforts to assist and enrich the lives of members of the communities who have supported the band, the outlet reported.