Guessing that's to do with the release of S&M2 in the theaters?
I went to see S&M2 last night.
My thoughts;
You could tell the difference between the original, Michael Kamen orchestral arrangements and arrangements made for the new songs.
Kamen was a genius who knew how to work in and around the existing music rather than just follow what was already there.
That being said, and this is probably more to do with improvements in sound quality and possibly different selection of instruments this time around, some of the old S&M stuff sounded slightly different, with certain parts being emphasised more.
However, the orchestral arrangements for Master of Puppets was butchered!
Instead of playing the same arrangements as the original S&M as they did with other songs from the original, the composer/conductor had the orchestra play something different and just plain awful.
The orchestra just followed exactly what the band were playing and it sounded so boring.
There were a couple of seemingly unnecessary moments half way through which just didn't gel for me.
The inclusion of All Within My Hands was... interesting.
The Unforgiven 3 was one of the highlights, as well as a certain instrumental which was fantastic.
I went into this not knowing Michael Kamen died in 2003, so didn't know why Metallica didn't have him back.
I don't follow much of Metallicas live stuff any more.
Mainly because Lars' drumming is getting worse as the years go on.
There were times when he seemed to be speeding up, or basically not being able to keep a consistent time. And the extra snare hits during the halfway point in One which he's been doing for the past few years just makes his drumming seem even more sloppy.
Overall sound was great, although sometime the low ends seemed a bit over powering, and the bass guitar was at time too prominent. Which is ironic when you remember ...And Justice For All.
Final verdict.
A pretty decent follow up, but some of the arrangements could have used work to sound more interesting.