[mort96]

He's not very technically strong, and a lot of their songs are very easy to play.

But is that all there is to it? Should not the drumming serve the song? I don't believe a lot of Metallica's music would be improved by making the drumming more technically impressive (at least for their earlier stuff, I have my gripes about the drumming in their last couple of albums). Their style is simply one which benefits much more from the unique but easy grooves rather than highly technically impressive drumming. And IMO, this simplicity is one of the things which distinguishes them from most other metal bands. I love myself some Slipknot, but I would not love that kind of drumming on Metallica tracks.

If I wanted to claim he's a terrible drummer, I would point to his inability to keep up live, how he has a habit of simplifying parts and missing timings in a way that sounds bad.

[hotsauceror]

I think this is really the key. “Metallica was a great band, and they had a drummer named Lars” is a perfectly reasonable take. He did what was needed for the songs, most of the time. If people want to extrapolate from that take to “and therefore he’s a great drummer,” that’s a bit more of a stretch. He’s not known for being a technical guy like Peart or Kollias or Adler. And we know he can’t play songs like “Dyer’s Eve” in one take, live, when I could go to a local death metal show, wave my arms around and hit three sixteen-year-old kids who could do it cold. Supposedly he couldn’t even do it in one take in the studio. But he puts the drums where they need to be. He can do enough of the standard “heavy drumming” to get by (“One”), but he can’t really push it too far (“Dyer’s Eve”, “Damage Inc.”)