Can you feel the fervour building up around the new Metallica album? The band has just announced the title of its ninth studio album, Death Magnetic.

As you can see from the picture, the album cover is expected to be stark white with the album title and the ‘M’ from the Metallica logo forming a pattern around it. Does anyone else remember scrawling these letters on schoolbags and books?

Death Magnetic is already one hotly-anticipated album, following the universally-panned St Anger in 2003. But as I said above, the fever is mounting and having been a Metallica fan for the last two decades (man, that’s hard to say), I’m hoping for nothing less than a complete return to form from the band. With a small side order of world domination.

And it could happen, too. Many reports suggest that this album takes us back to And Justice For All-era Metallica with longer song formats, epic riff-fests and the return of the missing guitar solos.

It sounds like Metallica are all set to turn things around on Death Magnetic, but with great hype comes great responsibility – they’re going to have to deliver a phenomenal album to satisfy the fans. And this time, I think they can.

I’m slightly disappointed by the cover art (if it’s representative of the final design) – classic Metallica comes with awesome illustrations. Think the gravestones on Master Of Puppets, or the electric chair on Ride The Lightning. The new generation (indeed, the old guard too) need an iconic design to link with the album. What do you think?

Unless, of course, they’re angling for the exact opposite of 1991’s Metallica/Black Album. Could this become known as the White Album?

» Hey, if you liked this, you’ll love our Completely Fictitious History Of Metallica