Metallica Announce Huge Tour and New Album 72 Seasons, Share Video for New Song: Watch

Metallica are back: A new album and tour are coming in 2023, and today, they’ve shared a song called “Lux Æterna.” Produced by Greg Fidelman, James Hetfield, and Lars Ulrich, the album, 72 Seasons, arrives April 14 next year. Their tour dates kick off in Europe the same month, before a string of North American shows later in the year. Extra stints are scheduled for Europe and America in 2024. Check out the itinerary on their website, and, below, the Tim Saccenti–directed video for “Lux Æterna” and the album tracklist. 

The tour includes two shows in each city visited, and the band promises completely different setlists and support lineups at each.

In a press release, Hetfield explains the record’s title thus: 

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. 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.

72 Seasons arrives more than six years after its predecessor, Hardwired…to Self-Destruct. Since then, they have reissued some classics, released a second live album with the San Francisco Symphony, commissioned a covers album featuring the likes of Phoebe Bridgers and Kamasi Washington, and broached the Billboard songs chart with “Master of Puppets” after a prominent Stranger Things placement.