Metallica have released a new EP, ‘Beyond Magnetic’, in celebration of their 30th anniversary.

The ‘Enter Sandman’ heavy metal band celebrated their landmark birthday with four shows in their hometown, San Francisco, last week, where they unveiled a previously unreleased new song each night, which have now been collected together for fans to download.

The songs, ‘Hate Train’, ‘Just a Bullet Away’, ‘Hell and Back’ and ‘Rebel of Babylon’, were recorded during sessions for the band’s last album, ‘Death Magnetic’, in 2008.

A statement on the group’s website read: “Last week we celebrated our 30th anniversary by playing four nights at the historic Fillmore in San Francisco . . . It was quite the bash each and every night!

“Whether or not you were there, you may have heard that we added some unreleased tracks from the ‘Death Magnetic’ sessions.

“This week, we’re releasing those four tracks. They are the rough mixes, unfinished to their original degree of mixing from March of 2008.”

Metallica’s four San Francisco shows saw members James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich and Robert Trujillo play special sets spanning their entire career and joined on stage by a host of special guests including members of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Faith No More as well as the band’s original guitarist, Dave Mustaine, of Megadeth.