Metallica, Lou Reed collaborative album “Lulu” falls short of pedigree

By Alec Marchant
Staff Writter

“Lulu,” the latest collaboration and experimental project from metal patriarch Metallica and rock singer-songwriter Lou Reed, is promising in conceptual stages, but ends up a boring mess.
The cover of the two-disc album “Lulu” features a tarnished mannequin, melancholic and mangled. Accompanied by a blood-smeared title, the album looks like a promising addition to the icons’ discographies but ultimately fails to measure up to the artists’ previous works.
This metal album all began with the intentions of Metallica recording Reed’s unreleased songs and in the midst of reading Reed’s material, the band found a series of tracks meant to be used in a stage play. After hearing renditions of German playwright Frank Wedekind’s “Lulu plays,” Metallica and Reed began to record.
Amidst the rough guitar strums, beloved Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich sounds amateurish and lazy. The annoyingly simple and childish lyrics add to the album’s general incoherence, void of anything desirable or entertaining.
Unappealing to die-hard Metallica fans and disconnected to Reed’s previous projects, the album is an accidental beacon of what not to do when making a metal album. By relying too much on Reed’s lyrics, the drums, guitar and, even Metallica themselves fall by the wayside, leaving listeners confused and deeply disappointed.
Generally, albums contain a standout song, but “Lulu” has nothing of the sort, resulting in a dissapointing inert record. Some of the tracks do entertain by themselves, but they do not come together as a whole, making the album feel incomplete.
In the song “Iced Honey,” the hushed pangs on Ulrich’s snare grow annoying. For a band like Metallica, the album featured extremely sloppy sounds. The heavy guitar strums and screeching noise of early Metallica seems completely lost.
From the inconsistent opening song, “Brandenburg Gate,” to the over produced and 10-minute-too-long conclusion, “Junior Dad,” the album is almost unbearable. “Lulu” is a record that will not only disenchant Metallica and Lou Reed fans, but is also a waste of content that could have brought the metal genre back on the map in the music industry.
“Lulu” was released on Nov. 1 and is available in stores and on iTunes.