72 Seasons

72 Seasons is the eleventh studio album by Metallica, released in April 2023 on Blackened Recordings and produced by Hetfield and Ulrich with Greg Fidelman, the band's first studio album in seven years and the first to be accompanied by a full stadium world tour structured around a rotating setlist that never repeated a song across back-to-back shows in any city. The album's title refers to the first 18 years of life, 72 seasons, as the period Hetfield has identified as formative in shaping the psychological patterns that drive the adult self; the lyrical themes across the 12 tracks explore childhood trauma, identity formation, and the mechanics of self-destruction with the directness that has characterized Hetfield's best writing since the Black Album. Hetfield and Ulrich co-wrote all material; Trujillo received his first-ever Metallica songwriting credit through co-writing on the track '72 Seasons' itself, the most significant credit expansion in the band's compositional hierarchy in decades. The album runs to 77 minutes and includes the Grammy-winning 'Screaming Suicide' alongside the 11-minute epic 'Inamorata.' 72 Seasons debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 and number one in multiple European countries, and the supporting M72 World Tour became one of the highest-grossing concert tours of 2023–2024.