Hardwired...to Self-Destruct

Hardwired...to Self-Destruct is the tenth studio album by Metallica, released in November 2016 on the band's own Blackened Recordings label and produced by Hetfield and Ulrich alongside engineer Greg Fidelman, the band's first studio album in eight years and a return to the raw, aggressive playing of their thrash period without the nostalgic retrofit feeling that had characterized some of Death Magnetic. The album is the first Metallica studio release fully owned and distributed by the band themselves through Blackened, a label they founded in 2012, giving them complete control over both the creative and commercial aspects of the release for the first time in their major-label career. Hetfield and Ulrich wrote all material; Trujillo and Hammett received no writing credits, continuing the long-standing pattern in which the core songwriting partnership controls the compositional process entirely. The album's two CDs run to 77 minutes across 12 tracks, with opener 'Hardwired' at 3:11 the most deliberately concise track the band had recorded since the 1980s, released as the lead single to signal an intentional return to velocity. Hardwired...to Self-Destruct debuted at number one in 32 countries and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album, and it was accompanied by a world tour that ran through 2019 and grossed over $165 million.