The collaboration of Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony sounds, well, interesting. As if your neighbors have their Mussorsky turned up loud next door while you’re listening to Metallica and they happened to blend a bit. As an “event,” it was done live to hieghten the excitement, but Metallica has never been great live, and it especially shows in the vocals here. I remember seeing them live at the zenith of their powers (Master of Puppets tour) and as much as I loved that album, they sucked live. They’ve always been about great arrangements, infectious melodies and rhythm, gorgeous timbres, and – the element that brought it all together and can only be truly captured in the studio – tight, tight performance.