Eight years into the following decade, Lars Ulrich claims that Metallica has finally left that ’90s zone where they were “all just stressed out and nutty,” and are ready to channel said nuttiness into some “seven-minute, eight-minute, nine-minute nutty-ass songs” peppered with “kind of hardcore, nutty super-fast speed stuff.” The band failed to play anything from the long-awaited Goin’ Nuts! during their benefit performance for the Silverlake Conservatory last Wednesday, but they were joined by Flea on 1984’s “Fight Fire With Fire.” Nutty-ass!

We sort of promised ourselves that unlike all the records we made in the ’90s, [which] were just completely stressed-out and just nutty, that we were gonna try and have a little more sane environment — and we’ve actually, surprising mostly to ourselves, been able to keep to that,” Ulrich said. “We’ve pretty much finished the music now, so all the next level stuff is just starting to go down.”

…”These are long songs … we’re talking seven-minute, eight-minute, nine-minute nutty-ass songs,” Ulrich revealed. “We don’t make them long or short on purpose; you just kind of do what feels natural. We’re not really gonna edit them, (so) we’re gonna lose another one at some point in the next month or so and probably end up with 10.”

Ulrich described the material as “definitely pretty all over the place. There’s a lot of variation, a lot of fast, slow, melodic … kind of hardcore, nutty super-fast speed stuff. It’s a little more like how some of the earlier records were a little more dynamic within the songs.”

Here’s Metallica rocking out with Flea – a double-bass attack that’s undoubtedly a tip of the hat to the Ned’s Atomic Dustbin reunion.

Make sure to catch Hetfield stick his ass to the audience while throwing horns at the end. If you listen hard, you can almost hear Ulrich scream “dude, your nuts!” Or “you’re,” it’s hard to tell.

Ulrich Promises ‘Dynamic’ New Metallica Album [Billboard]
Metallica at the Wiltern – Fight Fire With Fire (w/ Flea)