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Metallica's 11th studio album, 72 Seasons, will finally be released later this week (April 14th), but the album's title wasn't James Hetfield's decision. In a new interview on Metallica.com, the frontman revealed what he initially the record to be called, along with some insight on the album's current title.
Metallica released the album's first single, "Lux Æterna," in late 2022. Latin for "eternal light," the term was Hetfield's initial choice for Metallica's new album title. However, Hetfield was ultimately outvoted when it came time to make the decision.
"My vision was I wanted this album [to be] called Lux Æterna because that summed up all the songs for me, kind of an eternal light that was always inside of us that maybe is just now coming out," Hetfield shared. "And I was out-voted, which is great. 72 Seasons is definitely more chewable. You get to figure out what it is. You get to dig into it and chew on it a little more. But that color came out of 'Lux Æterna.'"
As Metallica have previously explained, the concept of the name 72 Seasons stems from the first 18 years (or 72 seasons) of someones life, which Hetfield also discussed in the interview. "72 Seasons as a concept, that's been digested from somewhere else. Meaning it was a concept – it was the '72 seasons of sorrow,' and I dropped the 'sorrow' part off because the first 18 years of life aren't all sorrow. And we tend to just focus on that in our adult life, like, 'I need to fix all the shit that was wrong when I was a kid.' There was great stuff as well, so 72 Seasons, everyone's got their version of what their 72 seasons were and what they mean to them now."
72 Seasons is out April 14th, 2023 via the band's own Blackened Recordings. You can pre-order it here.
