Metallica’s Death Magnetic is now officially in stores, and seems to be getting high marks from fans and critics alike across the board.

Here are some reviews from blog friends o’ mine including Rob @ 1888 Media, TJ @ Viva La Mainstream, and Chris Akin @ Pitriff.com shares no less than 4 reviews, including his own here. The Blabbermouth review is online with a rating of “8” and an overall user rating index of “8.1.”

I’d say people are digging what Metallica has served up with Death Magnetic. For an album that I was completely not excited about, they’ve certainly delivered an unexpected winner of an album that sounds like the old Metallica I knew and loved so much.

The band played a record release show in Berlin last night that as promised, was heavy on new material from Death Magnetic. Historically with last night’s show, the band became the first band ever to play at Berlin’s brand new 02 World Berlin arena.

Here is the complete setlist from Blabbermouth.net:

01. That Was Just Your Life
02. End Of The Line
03. The Thing That Should Not Be
04. Of Wolf Of Man
05. One
06. Broken, Beat, and Scarred
07. Cyanide
08. Frantic
09. Until It Sleeps
10. Wherever I May Roam
11. For Whom The Bells Tolls
12. The Day That Never Comes
13. Master Of Puppets
14. Blackened
– – – – – – – –
15. Blitzkrieg
16. Jump In The Fire
17. Seek and Destroy

Check out video footage from the show, and also interviews with the band via this link.

Speaking of that, I finally got a chance to listen to the fantastic Death Magnetic radio special hosted by Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins from the Foo Fighters hanging out for 90 minutes of interview time with the band, mixed with material from Death Magnetic.

Musician-to-musician interviews are always cool, as long as the person doing the interview is actually a fan, and Dave Grohl is certainly on record as being a big Metallica fan.

For those of you that missed it, here is the complete interview (ALL MUSIC HAS BEEN REMOVED! Buy Death Magnetic!)

The final segment which aired after the official broadcast ended is especially cool with discussion of various Metallica album covers, and also some talk about some of the guitars in James Hetfield’s collection. With no schedule or commercials to worry about in the final segment, the band and Foo guys seemed to relax quite a bit.

Metallica w/ Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins from the Foo Fighters
live at Metallica HQ
Thursday, September 4th

segment 1
segment 2
segment 3
segment 4
segment 5

Relevant Links:

Metallica official website

Purchase Death Magnetic from Amazon – CD, 2 LP set, 5 LP set with bonus CD