Metallica are 25% through writing the follow-up to 2008’s Death Magnetic, guitarist Kirk Hammett has confirmed.
He reports that the band have a dozen tracks at this point but insists the material is still evolving.
He tells Billboard: “We have a lot of good songs – they’re ever-changing at this point. Nothing is etched in stone. We still have a lot of material we have to sift through.
“We have well over a dozen songs and we still have well over two or three hundred riffs. I don’t think we hit the middle point yet. I would say we’re at the 25% point, maybe 30%. We’re making plans to write more songs and record.”
He adds: “Whenever we go into the studio it becomes such a huge thing in our lives that it does take on monstrous proportions. It takes up a lot of space in our lives. You can look at it as something monstrous – we’ve made movies about it.”
No completion date has been set for the album, but drummer Lars Ulrich recently said they could preview new material during their run of shows this summer, including their headline performance at the Reading and Leeds festivals in August.
Meanwhile, Hammett’s second annual horror convention titled Fear FestEvil gets underway this weekend in San Jose, California. Joining the guitarist at the event will be Slash, Rob Zombie, John 5 and Slipknot’s Corey Taylor.
