Lou Reed & Metallica/LuLu/2011

This album is getting killed on the inter-webs. The folks over at Blabbermouth are having a field day, the comment board on MetalSucks is blowing up with Metalli-hate, and the Gossip Board at Metal Sludge is doing more of the same.

I get it.

This pairing is inherently odd and not for everyone. I would venture a guess that most metalheads don’t listen to Lou Reed and vice versa. The avant garde, poetic musings of Lou Reed are in many ways the polar opposite of the testosterone-filled tough-guy machismo of Metallica’s brand of heavy metal music.

They made the album anyway.

LuLu is challenging, noisy, beautiful, atmospheric, ethereal, and at times a total train wreck. It is also fascinating and frequently emotionally powerful. There are moments when LuLu sounds like Metallica, forty years into the future, being fronted by an elderly James Hetfield, who has a drinking problem and just suffered a stroke. For example, Mistress Dread sounds like Metallica, bashing out Hit the Lights, with some insane old man on lead vocals, randomly babbling about bleeding and fucking. This is when LuLu does not work — when the song is simply Metallica being Metallica, and Lou Reed being Lou Reed, both playing two different songs on the same song. Does that make sense?

However, when Metallica abandon their stock riffage in favor of more open arrangements and really stretch out musically into uncharted territory, LuLu becomes captivating — even breathtaking. This is when LuLu sounds less like a collaborative juxtaposition of diametrically opposed musical forces, and more like one cohesive band. The best example is Little Dog, a sprawling, open composition that is surprisingly poignant and vulnerable.

It seems to take LuLu a while to find its legs. The last half of the album is much stronger than the first. Frustration, the aforementioned Little Dog, Dragon, and Junior Dad are easily the albums highlights. Iced Honey sounds like the most obvious attempt to recreate a classic Velvet Underground track and is the closest LuLu comes to commercial music. 

Lou Reed’s lyrics and delivery will be off-putting to many. However, if you enjoy the likes of Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, and even the poetic ramblings of Jim Morrison, you’ll probably be O.K. with it. Metalheads are not. There are already fan made versions of LuLu without Lou Reed’s vocals popping up online.

LuLu is not for everyone. It is pretentious and self-indulgent. It is also worth a listen. I write a metal blog, but I am not exclusively a metalhead. I listen to almost everything, sans polka and most pop music. I may be the only person alive who actually enjoys LuLu. I even like it better than Metallica’s most recent studio effort, Death Magnetic, which I thought bordered on self-parody and sounded stock. I am certain that participating in this project will in some way influence Metallica’s next record. Metallica really needs to put their energy into making a good Metallica record, so I don’t know if that is necessarily a good thing. I can’t really recommend LuLu because I know most people will hate it. However, if you enjoy coffee house poetry, cinematic soundscapes, and Enter Sandman, you might find LuLu worth your while. 7.5/10