Guitarists criticise Kirk Hammett, but who needs fancy guitar solos?

I recently read an interview with Kirk Hammett in Total Guitar and discovered that there’s an ongoing online debate about his guitar solo in Lux Aeterna. 😮 I felt I needed to address it

As someone who grew up in the 80s, Metallica has been a significant influence on my musical upbringing. I learned a lot from their guitar transcription books before even knowing what I was playing.

I understand that there’s some expectation from guitarists to evolve artistically, and it’s safe to say that Hammett’s solos were more diverse in their earlier albums, which he admits in the interview. 

Nowadays, and from what I could hear in their latest album “72 Seasons”, their music still primarily relies on the minor pentatonic/Blues scale, and Hammett is content with mainly using the minor pentatonic scale for his guitar solos. So Lux Aeterna’s solo is a bit more interesting, as he uses some chromatic runs. 🙂

Personally, I love this guitar solo as it brings the energy the song requires. I listened to a few other guitarists’ alternate solos to the song, and I didn’t feel it at all. They might be excellent technically, but there wasn’t any musical connection to the song.

Some of the criticism regarding the solo is that it jumps from one idea to another with “no logic”. But doesn’t it create a sense of hastiness that’s related to the feel and meaning of the song?

In the creative process, it might be true that these bits were glued together from different takes. Hammett said he’s now very much into improvisation and left the editing stage to Lars Ulrich and the producer Greg Fidelman.

This leads to an interesting topic, what is the purpose of a guitar solo? 

Is it for lead guitarists to showcase their shredding skills, like in those alternate solos? Or is it for adding a part that melodically expresses the song’s feel, energy or meaning without lyrics?

There are other approaches to incorporating a guitar solo, like using it to tell a story. But in this case, it seems that those other two answers are the main schools of thought.

I support the latter. To me, if the song needs a guitar solo (which is not a must). It’s a break from the vocal parts into a more abstract expressionism that doesn’t have to follow any rules. It exists because it adds some value to the song.

Also, I think it’s essential to have a flow into the guitar solo, so it doesn’t feel like it was forced into the song. In Lux Aeterna, specifically, I love how the band clears the stage for it by literally stepping down (chromatically).

Personally, I’m more into solo guitar than guitar solo. 🙂 On my latest instrumental guitar album, I had only one “traditional” guitar solo that goes into a blurry cloud of sounds. In another track, I used sweep picking to add an extra layer behind eight other guitar layers. 😀

What are your thoughts on this? Where do you stand?

Read more articles about guitar composition on my guitar blog!

Photo of Kirk Hammett by Raph_PH.

​​