Metallica confront taboos on new single ‘Screaming Suicide’: “It’s a human experience, we should be able to talk about it”

20 January, 2023

Metallica's video for 'Screaming Suicide

Metallica have shared new single ‘Screaming Suicide’, the second to be lifted from their forthcoming 11th studio album ’72 Seasons’.

The new song arrives alongside a video directed by Tim Saccenti, who also helmed the video for ’72 Seasons’ lead single ‘Lux Æterna’. In a statement accompanying its release, the band said the new song “addresses the taboo word suicide”.

“The intention is to communicate about the darkness we feel inside. It’s ridiculous to think we should deny that we have these thoughts,” the statement continued. “At one point or another, I believe most people have thought about it. To face it is to speak the unspoken. If it’s a human experience, we should be able to talk about it. You are not alone.”

Metallica announced ’72 Seasons’ back in November alongside European and North American tour dates for 2023 and 2024. The new album – the band’s first since 2016’s ‘Hardwired… to Self-Destruct’ will arrive on April 14.

In a statement alongside the album’s announcement, frontman James Hetfield discussed the inspiration behind the forthcoming record’s name. “72 seasons. The first 18 years of our lives that form our true or false selves. The concept that we were told ‘who we are’ by our parents. A possible pigeonholing around what kind of personality we are,” Hetfield said.

“I think the most interesting part of this is the continued study of those core beliefs and how it affects our perception of the world today. Much of our adult experience is reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences. Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry.”

The band’s upcoming world tour includes two nights in each city they are booked to play, promising a “no repeat weekend” of two different sets and two different opening acts. Supports across the tour include Architects, Pantera, Mammoth WVH, Five Finger Death Punch, Ice Nine Kills, Volbeat and Greta Van Fleet.

Last month, Metallica held their third annual Helping Hands charity concert, which raises funds for their All Within My Hands organisation. On the evening, the band played an acoustic cover of Thin Lizzy‘s ‘Borderline’ and brought out St. Vincent to perform ‘Nothing Else Matters’.

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