Being Metallica must be great – you get to be in a metal band for 20-odd years, you get lots of money, you get to tour the world many times over and you get legions of devoted fans.

Oh, and you get to be complete and total prannocks about seemingly everything involving the internet, yet still somehow manage to maintain the credibility that would clearly be destroyed if you were any other musical act in the world. Things, they are strange.

For this time Metallica have decided that allowing people they have invited to listen to their new music to review it would be something of a cardinal sin. Possibly on a par with the holocaust, but we’re still waiting for a quote on that one.

It all began a few days ago when the band invited a number of music journalists to hear their new material, somewhere in London. These critics gorged their aural senses with the gravelly-voiced delights of James Hetfield and co. and returned to their respective abodes, fresh in the knowledge that they could freely impart their newfound wisdom to the fans of the world.

Unfortunately, these journos seemed to forget that to satiate the hunger of these waiting Metallica fans they would have to use the tool most hated by the band: the internet. In using this evil device – which was probably crafted by Satan no less – the information pertaining to the new album was uploaded onto a few blogs.

Good God, what were they thinking?!

It didn’t take too long for Metallica to get wind of this though, and soon enough they were out bullying the sites where reviews were hosted, forcing them to withdraw the offending articles.

Just as with the horror that was Napster and its ridiculous idea of a future where digital distribution could thrive, the tiny, underprivileged band managed to safeguard their music and their reputation once more.

So thank you, Metallica. Thank you for being so utterly, completely and totally insane. Thank you for hating technology, discouraging innovation and stamping down on all those far smaller than you. It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside to know that you’re still a bunch of tossers.