i guess they all run out of material at some point...
i just wanted to mention something kinda funny.... Metallica has produced awesome records when they were drunk/high mostly. Every song they earned prizes for they wrote when they were wasted. Enter Sandmand was written at 3 am when kirk was piss drunk.
later Metallica took their drug/alcohol too serious (the whole James Hetfield) incident. Hetfield had to go to rehab, and metallica just took a shit there. they were horrible IMHO.
now supposedly metallica is drug/alcohol free (almost)... im interested to see how that turns out lol
with all that being said, even when metallica as a band took shit Kirk Hammett was still glowing and coming up with top notch solos and instrumentals along with Lars Ulrich... we'll see how they do it as a band..
thanks for your feedback Rick... i just placed the pre-order on amazon