After celebrating the band’s 40th anniversary last year, Metallica have today released the official music video for ‘Lux Æterna,’ from the album 72 Seasons available April 14th, 2023. James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich co-produced the 77-minute, 12-song album with their longtime producer, Greg Fidelman.

The record is a rumination of sorts on childhood, with “72 seasons” representing the number of seasons we live through by the time we become an adult. Hetfield explained the album’s concept in a statement. “72 seasons — the first 18 years of our lives that form our true or false selves,” he said. “The concept that we were told ‘who we are’ by our parents. A possible pigeonholing around what kind of personality we are. I think the most interesting part of this is the continued study of those core beliefs and how it affects our perception of the world today. Much of our adult experience is a reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences. Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry.”

72 Seasons track list:

1. 72 Seasons
2. Shadows Follow
3. Screaming Suicide
4. Sleepwalk My Life Away
5. You Must Burn!
6. Lux Æterna
7. Crown of Barbed Wire
8. Chasing Light
9. If Darkness Had a Son
10. Too Far Gone?
11. Room of Mirrors
12. Inamorata