See Metallica Crush ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ With San Francisco Symphony

Metallica have refigured their crushing hit, “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” with the San Francisco Symphony, for their upcoming S&M2 release, due out next Friday.

In the intro, Robert Trujillo plays the track’s apocalyptic descending bass line as the string section swells around it, while conductor Edwin Outwater jumps up and down with the rhythm. The string arrangement, which conductor Michael Kamen wrote for the original S&M concerts in 1999, also adds a little sparkle to the long, drawn-out guitar chords when James Hetfield sings.

The group recorded the song alongside a career-spanning set list last September with the Symphony at the Chase Center in San Francisco. Metallica have also released video of them playing “Nothing Else Matters,” “Moth Into Flame,” and “All Within My Hands” at the event.

In other Metallica news, the band will film themselves performing a whole concert that will be screened at drive-in theaters around North America on August 29th. The group also recently broadcasted footage of them playing some songs from the “Black Album,” on the record’s anniversary, at their Bay Area headquarters for Howard Stern. After “Wherever I May Roam,” Stern commented, “Good lord, I love it.”