Metallica is back for the ninth time with a new album, Death Magnetic.

Aside from some production quality issues, the album is better than some of the band’s recent albums.

There are fewer “radio ready” songs, meaning that no songs on the album are less than five minutes long. The shortest song, “My Apocalypse,” runs for 5:10. Fans of metal should be able to find at least a couple songs they like, as “Magnetic” both caters to anyone who enjoyed Metallica’s music for 20 years and anyone looking to get into the band’s music for the first time.

Quick and energetic songs such as “The End of the Line” sound tastefully done, as do the slower-paced tracks like “The Unforgiven III.”

Following the release of St. Anger, many Metallica fans feared this new, lighter album meant that the band was going soft, relinquishing many things that drew fans in the first place. In that sense, this album is more of a return to form, reassuring Metallica’s fans that the band has not fallen into total obscurity but is still engaging newcomers. Instead of making new music on the spot, the band has gone back to writing music before the recording stage. However, for all accomplishments made in this new album, it is not without flaws.

The human ear responds differently to different sound levels, louder levels often register as the clearer sound and, therefore, are regarded as the better track. Remastered music tracks are created much in the same way.

With “Magnetic,” the loudest sounds are distorted or diminished, actually making the production values seem somewhat lower on the album itself.

A simple mistake such as this creates distortions in sound, which are noticeable depending on the speakers used and the people who hear it.

Altogether, this is not reason enough not to recommend this album. James Hetfield, Kirk Hammet and Lars Ulrich return. New bass player Robert Trujillo makes his debut with Metallica. Every musician also contributed to the songwriting, ensuring that each performance is a metallic harmony of sorts. It will be interesting to see where Metallica goes from here.