Classic Rock recently had a feature celebrating the 40th anniversary of DIAMOND HEAD’s “Lightning To The Nations” album, where Lars Ulrich was asked about the status of METALLICA’s follow-up to 2016’s “Hardwired… To Self-Destruct” album. He responded: “[It’s been] glacial. These are the craziest of times and nothing is letting up. There’s a little bit of movement [in that direction], but it’s hard to do a lot when we’re not together.”
This past November, Ulrich told Rolling Stone that METALLICA was nearly a month into “some pretty serious writing” for their next studio album.
Last May, METALLICA overcame social distancing to record a new version of their song “Blackened”, with each of the four members in his own respective home. The split-screen video was posted to the band’s social media. That same month, Ulrich told Swedish talk show host Fredrik Skavlan that he and his bandmates were “sending ideas to each other via e-mail and via Zoom and [trying to] make music in these unusual situations.”