Hetfield Offers Up First Look at Metallica '72 Seasons' Vinyl, CD

Metallica's new album 72 Seasons comes out on April 14 and James Hetfield has now offered fans a look at the packaging for both the vinyl and digipak CD variants.

"Would ya look at that, It seems a box of vinyl fell off the back of a truck and somehow founds its way to HQ and into the tattooed hands of James Hetffield," the band jokingly exclaimed on Twitter, previewing the nearly two-minute video clip of the frontman examining the contents of the vinyl version of 72 Seasons.

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He slices a plastic edge open with a knife, opens up the gatefold display to reveal the full album cover. Inside there's full-sized photos of each member, depicted in a steely grey which shows that these visages have weathered far more than just 72 seasons of life. Papa Het even pokes the mole on Kirk Hammett's face with his finger, presumably with a light laugh.

A yellow lyric booklet is also included, offering close-ups of some of the charred items seen on the 72 Seasons artwork and, near the end, he holds out the open gatefold to reveal a set of bars that form the numbers 7 and 2 on the respective inside jackets with the inserts being housed behind them.

Basically, the contents of the vinyl package are behind bars, much like a crib. See what they did there?!

Watch the clip below.

Turning to the digipak CD in a separate video, Hetfield tears away the plastic and shows off the back cover, which is where the 72 crib bars layout is. The booklet inside has a five panel display with the CD positioned in the center and, if you look closely at the yellow CD, you can see the runtimes for each of the 12 tracks!

The last video Metallica shared is Hetfield opening up the black cassette edition of 72 Seasons; with no pencil in hand, he attempts to rewind the tape with his knife.

With "Lux Aeterna," "Screaming Suicide," "If Darkness Had a Son" and the 72 Seasons title track all now out, fans have heard one fourth of the album's tracks and should have a reasonable idea of how the album will shape up.

Catch Metallica on tour this year and next at these dates and for tickets here.