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Post by ganews on Nov 21, 2016 10:58:29 GMT -5
I'm really pleased with the development of career review/versus threads on the Music Board, and I plan to move completed threads over to Articles before they disappear off the front page. Or if they keep growing, a sub-board. I quite enjoyed playing along with Queen, a band from whom I knew many songs but few albums (I concluded that there was a good reason for this). I have decided to tackle another stalwart whose career is generally broken into pieces and widely considered to be in decline: Metallica. I never disliked Metallica when I heard them on the radio. I would turn it up in the car when 99X, Atlanta's only radio station that claimed the alternative mantle, started playing a "Mandatory Metallica" block as the 90s grew late and the programming turned toward angry dudes. I liked their episode of VH1's "Behind the Music". They didn't break my heart when they went to war with Napster as I was starting college, and I think that in spite of being pretty dickish time has proven them right. I really liked what was essentially their greatest hits double album S&M, a concert recording with the band backed by an orchestra (I downloaded it). I definitely haven't listened to any of their newer output after that point 17 years ago, but I probably listened to an older proper album or two at some point. I'm no great patron of metal, but it's not like I have a rule against it. I'm pretty sure the only metal on my computer is Metallica and Dethklok. I don't really visit the LOUD thread. And as you will see here (and probably in the Queen thread) I don't know much technical stuff about music or play an instrument. Neither do I care much about authenticity or image, especially when we're talking about decades-old arguments, so I'm not going to quit when after they get new haircuts. I like what I like, and one of the things I like in metal (and music in general) is having and being able to mostly understand lyrics. My plan is to review every album proper, collaboration, and cover album the band put out, with no live/concert albums, demos, or EPs. I don't expect to give an incredibly in-depth analysis. I'll probably write about each track as I hear it unless there's something that seriously needs attention, like I did with Queen. Kill 'Em All (1983) Ride the Lightning (1984) Master of Puppets (1986) ...And Justice for All (1988) Metallica (1991) Load (1996) Reload (1997) Garage Inc. (1998) INTERMISSIONSt. Anger (2003) Death Magnetic (2008) Lulu (2011) Hardwired... to Self-Destruct (2016)
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Post by Il sole sotto la terra on Nov 21, 2016 11:11:03 GMT -5
It's all been downhill for them since they kicked Mustaine out.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Nov 22, 2016 0:44:13 GMT -5
As the one metal fan on earth who liked Death Magnetic, I look forward to you disliking Death Magnetic.
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Post by ganews on Nov 25, 2016 12:48:44 GMT -5
Kill 'Em All (1983) Pre-existing PrejudicesNothing in particular except what I remember of "old Metallica". None of the track names jump out at me, though I expect to recognize some as I listen. Everyone hated how they turned down the bass after Cliff Burton died, so I'm looking forward to audible bass which I like. I'm pretty sure I've listened to Mustaine's "Peace Sells" for the first time more recently than a Metallica album. Songs"Hit The Lights" - James Hetfield sounds so young and high-pitched, far more scream than growl. It's like listening to Big Boi on the debut OutKast album. (Expect more inane comparisons throughout this project.) Anyhoo, this is thrash, and it's fine. I'm amused by Ulrich's sort of out-of-place tom fill near the beginning. The rising tenor of the final finger-tapping solo sounds like Van Halen. "Four Horsemen" - Chugga chugga. I wish I was listening to this in my car with the speakers cranked instead of with headphones at work. I always like a good mid-song change-up. The changes halfway through this track don't lead to anything special, but I do like how the song unexpectedly really slows down for a bit and the bass gets very high. I'm also beginning to think that a succession of 7-minute tracks that repeat the riff with different solos is going to get tiring, so the changes had better be good. Are there four tempos to go with the four horsemen? That would be clever. "Motorbreath" - It's tom fill time again, which doesn't sound bad but is a little funny to me. This is a little faster. I like the pauses for solos and stomps. "Jump In The Fire" - This feels more like a song than speed for the sake of speed? That doesn't necessarily make it superior, but it makes it stand out. Being shorter, I like that it gets to the point. "Jump in the fye- ahh!" "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth" - "Bass solo take 1." That's a promising introduction, but this isn't really fulfilling me. It's cool to have a "lead bass", but it's not like this is Les Claypool or even that guy from the Flektones. This still sounds like a demo. "Whiplash" - I like machine-gun drum/guitar assaults, and I'm looking forward to the ones I know from subsequent albums. The pause of chugging for tom fill and cry of "whiplash!" is kinda funny. It's also amusing to hear Hetfield's vocals squeak like David Lee Roth. "Phantom Lord" - Hmmm, unexpectedly synthy intro, fitting perhaps for Ming the Merciless. It leads into another fairly straightforward thrash song. It briefly slows down into something entirely different in the middle, but nothing gets done with that part. "No Remorse" - I'm just waiting for tom fills in between chugs, and the change-ups aren't doing much to keep it interesting. I can pull some snatches of high bass late in the song after the snare roll, which is nice. "Seek & Destroy" - Here's another track that sounds like a real song, like "Jump In The Fire". It sounds familiar somehow, like something from later. I know! The "seek and destroy" cadence matches the line "time marches on" from "For Whom the Bell Tolls". Still, it's pretty good. It would be even better if it was trimmed to the best parts in four minutes. But, we get the first instance of James Hetfield laughing, ha ha ha! "Metal Militia" - It's another collection of riffs and shouts, and it's OK. I'm amused by how Hetfield rushes out the pronunciation of "militia". The marching/war sound effects at the end are a cute addition but are odd to tack on at the very end. Summary: The vocals just aren't distinctive yet, I guess. Hetfield often sounds like Lemmy. I can only put the titles to a few of these songs ("Whiplash!), and it's all a bit interchangeable. As for the sound, I'm starting to appreciate the old statement from "Behind the Music" that they were too punk for metal and too metal for punk. The interludes are appreciated, but less so if they don't actually add anything interesting to the song. It still needs a lot of forming. Favorite overall song: "Jump In The Fire" just barely edges out "Seek & Destroy" by virtue of being shorter, though it was pretty close. Favorite new-to-me song: "Jump In The Fire" (They were all new-to-me after all.)
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Post by Il sole sotto la terra on Nov 25, 2016 15:41:35 GMT -5
It struck me as I listened to this album the other day that I have heard it so many times, it's almost impossible not to let it fade into background noise. I've probably heard this album more than 1,000 times over the last 28 years, and I've worn out two cassette copies. To try and come at it with something like fresh ears, I also listened to the 1982 No Life 'til Leather demo, which featured the Hetfield/Ulrich/Mustaine/McGovney lineup playing most of the songs that wound up on Kill 'Em All.
What I was listening to at the time, instead of MetallicaI was pretty into traditional heavy metal - Def Leppard, Scorpions, Dio, Ozzy, etc. I also listened to quite a bit of Top 40 and whatever was on the local rock station - Greg Kihn, Journey, that sort of thing. Some time in 1983, I also developed a minor obsession with The Stray Cats. Despite living about half an hour away from Metallica's home base, they hadn't yet penetrated my consciousness. The Songs"Hit the Lights" - This is a pretty great opener. It fades in for a bit, and then they're off at almost 200bpm. This might be the earliest entry in the "thrash songs about how rad thrash is" canon (seriously, you could get a pretty decent playlist of 80s thrash consisting of nothing but songs in this vein). The biggest change from the demo here is that Hetfield ditched his NWOBHM-style melodic vocals for a raspier bark, which is good, since his voice is, uh, not suited to that sort of thing. Hammett follows the general format of Mustaine's demo solos, but changes them up enough to make them his own. "The Four Horsemen" - The demo's "The Mechanix" gets overhauled here. Gone are the cringeworthy lyrics about sex in a gas station (but Dave saw to it that the world was not denied his vision by releasing the original version as "Mechanix" on Megadeth's 1985 debut Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good!), and in their place we get some apocalyptic Revelations stuff. It's slowed down from the demo version (which is still slower than the Megadeth version), and gets a bridge courtesy of Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama". It's pretty epic, and a bit of foreshadowing of their later, more progressive thrash. "Motorbreath" - Another "thrash metal is rad" song, but from the POV that being in a thrash band is also rad. It's pretty close to the demo version, on which Hetfield already used raspier vocals. Hammett's solos may be a bit of step down from Mustaine's, but either version is a pretty kickass thrasher. "Jump in the Fire" - I never really cared much for this song, and considered it pretty dull until it's basically redeemed by the solo starting at about 3:45. At least the lyrics are a considerable improvement over the ridiculously juvenile sexytimes version on the demo. "(Anesthesia) - Pulling Teeth" - Legend has it that this is what Cliff Burton was playing when Hetfield and Ulrich came into a gig by Burton's band Trauma. They immediately set about recruiting him to join Metallica, and I would have too. For a bass solo, this is awesome. Hell, as a song, it's awesome. "Whiplash" - A little bit of stop/start, and then this one just thrashes. As far as I'm concerned, this is Hetfield's peak vocal performance on this album. Another "thrash is rad" song, but what the hell, this ain't Xentrix. We ain't tryna get woke. We just wanna bang our heads, and this is pretty fucking perfect for that. "Phantom Lord" - Dull, dull, dull. This differs from the demo version with another slowed-down bridge again foreshadowing proggier Metallica. Best part of this one is the delivery of "Fall to your knees, and bow to the phantom lord!" "No Remorse" - Like "Jump in the Fire", this is no fun until it starts to thrash at about 4:45, and then it kicks ass from then on out. "Seek & Destroy" - Back when I had this album dubbed onto a 90-minute cassette (that's right, I was cheating Metallica out of royalties 10 years before Napster. Take that, Lars!), this was at the end of Side A. I frequently fast-forwarded through it to get to "Metal Militia" and "Am I Evil?" on Side B. This is slow, repetitive and boring. It's also been irredeemably tainted by the version I heard on WYSP (maybe on Opie & Anthony?) shortly after 9/11, where sound clips from Donald Rumsfeld press conferences had been dubbed in. Fuck that noise. "Metal Militia" - And, appropriately enough, we close with another "thrash is rad" song. This one was cool, because it made you feel like you were part of a more badass version of the Kiss Army, and I know I wrote "Metal Militia" with pointy little Metallica serifs on more than one Trapper Keeper and pair of Chuck Taylors back then. This one thrashes pretty hard. It's nearly identical to the demo version, which is OK, since it really needed no improvement (Dave's solo has more shred though). 1988 Bonus Tracks "Blitzkrieg" - A competent cover of an OK song. Not really that much more to say than that, other than it's a little less groovy and more thrashy than the Blitzkrieg original. "Am I Evil?" - OK, so this is a pretty great cover. It ups the menace of the Diamond Head original (which, after hearing the Metallica version so many times, sounds like The Sweet covering Metallica to me) by a factor of about 100. Final thoughts Kill 'Em All ramps up the tightness, speed and agression when compared with No Life 'Til Leather. Cliff Burton is a better bassist than Ron McGovney, and Kirk fills Dave's shoes pretty well. Hetfield's vocals are markedly improved from the demo as well, and he never really sounded anything like this again. As one of the foundational blocks of the new genre, it's not pure thrash, but a mix of thrash and punked-up NWOBHM. Still, it's a kickass album, and the one I most frequently cited as my favorite back in the 80s. Favorites "Hit the Lights", "Whiplash" Least favorites "Phantom Lord", "Seek & Destroy"
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Post by ganews on Nov 25, 2016 17:29:15 GMT -5
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monodrone
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Post by monodrone on Nov 28, 2016 10:43:56 GMT -5
Background: The first Metallica song I can remember liking was I Disappear from the Mission Impossible soundtrack (that also birthed Limp Bizkit's Take A Look Around, which I purchased on CD single to give you some context as to what I was into aged 16). It would be another 2 years before I got into Metallica for reals when a guitarist friend of mine gave me copies of The Classic 80s Trio because he wanted to jam a bunch of songs from them during the holidays and I was the only drummer he knew. As a result of that, I'm a relatively rare Lars Ulrich apologist.
Hit The Lights is good. I imagine shouting Hit The Lights while punching the air would have been a highlight at a Metallica concert in the early 80s had I been at one.
The Four Horsemen should have been no more than 5 minutes long. The first switch is great but I don't like the slow section starting half way through and I think the solo that accompanies it is dumb and uninspiring and too dang long. The last chuggy bit and solo is the first real sign of the Metallica that I know and love. Welcome, friends.
Motorbreath. Yes, Motorhead were good.
Jump In Fire. OK.
(Anesthesia)--Pulling Teeth. First two minutes: no Drums, no dice. Last two minutes: good.
No Remorse. The verses on this song were better when they redid them on Ride The Lightning, which we'll get to. Then there's 4 seconds of Iron Maiden thrown in for no good reason which angers me and puts me off the following minute or so before I calm down and get back in the groove of it.
Seek & Destroy. See Hit The Lights but take out 'I imagine', switch out 'would have been' with 'was' and 'early 80s had I been at one' with '00s'. There's no need for it to be 7 minutes long, though. C'mon guys, hire an editor to cut this shit down.
Metal Militia is a show about a spy.... I mean, it is a song by Metallica.
To sum up: Metallica were 19/20 years old when they wrote these songs so while I'll not be in any rush to hear this album again I appreciate that they were onto something and way ahead of where most bands are at when they release a debut record.
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Nov 28, 2016 14:21:45 GMT -5
TL; DR Personal HistoryDefinitely arrived at the tail end of Metallica's peak era. I bought ...And Justice in late 1988. I'd seen Kill 'Em All album cover on t-shirts. I'd known of its proposed title via pirated t-shirts; thanks to the across-the-street neighbor who was too toked out to play in the garage band I made mention of earlier. Also, he sold me porn that was not ready-to-hand in the known stash of woods' porn at our local swamp/dump/BMX-hump track. Somehow, he did not manage to sell me brickweed. Good on you, parents! Suffice it to say: There were a hell of a lot of Metallica t-shirts visible in North Florida ca. 1984 onward. Like Il sole sotto la terra, in 1983 I was doggie paddling with the likes of "stage" metal-rock, a la Twisted Sister, with whom Metallica did their first Euro tour and developed the songs that would become your next quarry, ganews. But, for some reason I learned to loathe metal, favoring hardcore punk and, really, all flavors of punk available. I eschewed Master and Ride, along with this album. At this teen-age, I barely liked ....And Justice. Frankly, I was floating along in goody-goody land, wafting on the breezes of poseur-dom, and rarely living anywhere near a Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Relative Commentary to this RecordI don't own this one. I have a rip of Horsemen of the Apocalypse CD which collected No Life 'Til Leather among other rarities, from a now-dispossessed sibling of my wife. I got it after meeting him for the first time. He regaled all in the family room, around this time of year - actually, with his rendition of metal ballad, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". Later that evening, he pressed a CD-rip of this into my hands as we left. Gotta admit, it's a pretty sweet bootleg cover. Listening Results"Hit The Lights" - Guitars clashing in a soundcheck-like maelstrom. Drums leading the troops to the frontline. We have a metal here, fellas. A real, hard, thrashing metal. "Four Horsemen" - Chugga-chugga-choo-choo riffs galloping along to the metal reckoning. And, does this have a Lynyrd Skynyrd "Sweet Home" breakdown in the bridge? Did I hear that? "Motorbreath" - Good enough, boys. You made many humans on this planet see that they can get their act together and make their own metal. Just like your inspiration: The Breath of Lemmy. "Jump In The Fire" - Venomous. As for the rest of it, I listened this time, all the way through; and now I've listened to this album in its entirety for, like, the tenth time - ever. I'm grateful that I, although when in my mid-30s, sought this records' influences. NWOBHM acts like Diamond Head and Raven really knocked on Satan's door, loudly. I also must admit that a slavish return to Ride, in my 30s, elicited my discovery of Angel Witch, which was a great NWOBHM band. Closing ArgumentsI like it enough. Glad to have a form of its instance that I just happened to pick up as a foisted-upon-me gift. Love its influences: Raven, Motorhead, Mercyful Fate, et cetera. Light digging leaves this dropping. Check out the tank dong!
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Post by Some Kind of Munster on Nov 28, 2016 14:25:14 GMT -5
I don’t know if “Hit the Lights” and “Four Horsemen” are really any better than the rest or if it’s just that two songs (clocking in at over 11 minutes) is about as much of this iteration of Metallica that I really want to listen to but I always get bored with this album once I get past those two. Having forced myself to listen to the whole thing a few more times now i still can’t remember very much about most of these songs… they tend to zip past me without leaving much of an impression. One thing that did jump put at me was the vaguely-surfy, buzzy guitar lead in “Jump in the Fire” – with a slightly different approach I could see this being a quirky new wave song by someone like the B-52s. I also enjoyed “Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth)” a lot more than I remembered liking it in the past. This was always the “fast forward the fuckin’ tape, I wanna hear ‘Whiplash’!” segment of the album but I’m digging the bass tone and the little flashes of wah pedal distortion. I have a hard time enjoying “Metal Militia” because it always makes me think of the “Metal Mulisha” stickers I’ve seen on the backs of pickup trucks (the internet is telling me that this is some sort of early 2000’s Xtreme™ clothing brand) and that spelling of militia always makes me want to ram these trucks with my little Hyundai Accent. Kind of jumping off what monodrone said above, if you were to look at this album free of the baggage of being Metallica’s debut, it’s pretty stunning – if it was a one-off album from some unknown band it would be heralded as a lost classic. But knowing what was to come (only a year later!) it’s kind of underwhelming.
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Post by ganews on Nov 29, 2016 15:18:23 GMT -5
Ride the Lightning (1984) Pre-existing PrejudicesKill 'Em All was pretty underwhelming for me, so my hopes for the follow-up are tempered. It's only been a year, how much could they have grown? "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is on here though, and that's pretty awesome (and now I know that it's an improved take on "Seek and Destroy"), so let's have a listen. Songs "Fight Fire with Fire" - I like the intro with the grandpa's guitars (also expect more Metalocalypse references to come). Then it comes on very chipped and aggressive. The sound is kind of overall flat, but it sounds meaner. I think I already like this more than any track on the debut. I like Lars' rapid kicks and they make me tired. "Ride the Lightning" - This continued from "Fight Fire with Fire" without a break, and that's appropriate because I don't hear a lot of difference in the sound, at least at first. It gets more interesting as it goes. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" - Wooooo! I love the bell, the slow build, the bass - there's so much tension in this song, something I think you don't get with instant-speed-thrash. The use of gaps in the instrumentation, or at least pauses for drum fills, has so much more feeling than on "Whiplash". I love the imagery of the lyrics, something I really haven't paid much attention to up to this point. The hopeless of the soldier. I haven't actually read Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (put that one on the list for the holidays), but I know well "The Charge of the Light Brigade". I hope I get surprised with more literary references like this song and "One". "Fade to Black" - It's another thoughtful number, and another I already know. I didn't realize it was from this early in their career. I thought everybody got pissed at Metallica in the 90s for using a softer sound, but here this is in 1984 and it's great. Depression, misery, and anger, that's what I want in my metal. It means much more to me than the yay-thrash 7-minute wanks on the debut. I love how the ballad grows heavier and faster as the narrator comes near the end. "Trapped Under Ice" - We're thrashing again, but this is a great fusion between song and instruments. It's a bit chuggy, but more interesting than "Fight Fire with Fire", which in retrospect was most interesting just for the novelty. "Escape" - Another song without segue. It's even more of a chuggy return to debut form. Kind of curious to hear the personal-empowerment lyrics, which apparently Hetfield was made to write for radio play. I do like the hammer sound effect during "See them try to bring the hammer down", but that siren during the outro is reeeally dumb. "Creeping Death" - Exodus is a good subject for a metal song. I don't have a lot else to say, except that I'm finding Kirk Hammett's solos very unmemorable. They're cool, but they don't stand out to me as important to the song. Wait, whaddya mean "that's metal?!" "The Call of Ktulu" - A third track I am familiar with, or at least I remember the title from S&M. As I've said before, instrumental tracks just don't stick in my head unless I've heard them a million times like the Dixie Dregs or Allman Brothers. This is a great piece, though. No parts feel tacked-on. Summary: This is a great album, miles ahead of Kill Em' All. The lyrics were saying something this time, and Hetfield's vocals were much more distinctive. I'm very impressed they did this just twelve months later. (Which brings me to a thought I had during the Queen thread: remember when a band would come out with a great album every year, at least for the first part of their career?) It's got some variation too, unlike the debut, such that the last three lyrical songs sound a little same-y before the instrumental finish. It's not quite enough to make me want to play it as an independent album compared to a greatest-hits like S&M, but it's getting close. Favorite overall song: "For Whom the Bell Tolls", no contest. Favorite new-to-me song: "Trapped Under Ice", though really "The Call of Ktulu" because I only remembered the title apparently.
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Post by Il sole sotto la terra on Nov 29, 2016 21:46:51 GMT -5
This is another album where I wore out two cassette copies. It hangs together as an album better than Kill ‘Em All, so it didn’t require quite as much effort to concentrate on it. Still, I did listen to some supplementary material as well. What I was listening to at the time, instead of MetallicaI was still into JV metal, like Twisted Sister, Ratt, Van Halen and Quiet Riot. I also listened to a lot of Top 40 too, and was starting to really dig Duran Duran. Metallica was still completely unknown to me. The songs“Fight Fire With Fire” – Is this the genesis of the whole gentle acoustic intro/raging metal cliché? I always swore I could hear someone vocalizing along with the melody of the intro. This one is a good thrasher, probably about as fast as Metallica ever got. If it were on Kill ‘Em All, the lyrics would be about how rad thrash is, but instead we get nuclear war, which is pretty cool I guess. “Ride The Lightning” – This might have been what they were going for with “The Four Horsemen”- some chugging riffs, then a tempo change, and then back to the chugging riffs. It comes together a lot better here, probably thanks to the greater variety in the riffing. The soloing in the slower-paced middle section is pretty kickass, especially when the pace starts to pick up towards the end. “For Whom The Bell Tolls” – Whenever I hear a bell ring on the local rock station, I get excited for about half a second, thinking it’s this song. It’s always AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” though. I think this has the best lyrics on the album, and it moves at an appropriately stolid martial pace. Cliff provides some nice lead bass on the intro. “Fade To Black” – Ugh. Thrash ballads. They’re the reason I never really got into Testament. This is the worst song Metallica had written to this point in their career. Even the decent soloing at the end can’t salvage this dreck. “Trapped Under Ice” – Ah, that’s better. Some proper thrash. Kirk went to the Exodus well, and salvaged a riff from “Impaler” on his prior band’s 1983 demo (which finally got a proper release in 2004). Even as a teenager, I knew the lyrics here were incredibly dumb. Metallica never made as much use of gang shouts as a lot of thrash bands, but we get some nice ones in the chorus here. “Escape” – AOR bullshit with featherweight riffs. The only decent thing here is the “See them try to bring the hammer down.” bit. Back in the 80s, I wished they had somehow swapped the lyrics with “Trapped Under Ice” and made one awesome song from the two, but now they read as uncomfortably Randian. “Creeping Death” – Metallica returns to Exodus again, both musically and lyrically. Kirk borrows another of his riffs, plus most of the chorus from "Die By His Hand" by his old band, and we get additional lyrics inspired by the ten Biblical plagues. I always thought of this as sort of a sluggish song, but it actually moves along pretty well. “The Call of Ktulu” - I always have a tough time choosing my favorite Metallica instrumental. Between this and “Orion”, it usually winds up being whichever one I’m listening to at the time. As a huge Lovecraft fan, I want to give this one the edge, and it’s pretty damn epic. It’s a great album closer, since it usually makes me want to start again from the beginning. Final thoughtsOne of the through lines of Nudeviking vs. Queen was that band’s complete inability or indifference when it came to sequencing an album. Metallica clearly gave the topic some thought, and came up with something that flows pretty well, especially when you take it as two sides of an LP or cassette. I think that’s a big reason this one holds my attention better than Kill ‘Em All, and we’ll see slight variations on this sequencing style on the next two albums. I always went back and forth over my favorite Metallica album back in the day, but this one usually came out near the top, and often usurped Kill ‘Em All for the top spot.
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Post by Nudeviking on Nov 29, 2016 22:12:39 GMT -5
TL; DR Personal HistoryDefinitely arrived at the tail end of Metallica's peak era. I bought ...And Justice in late 1988. I'd seen Kill 'Em All album cover on t-shirts. I'd known of its proposed title via pirated t-shirts; thanks to the across-the-street neighbor who was too toked out to play in the garage band I made mention of earlier. Also, he sold me porn that was not ready-to-hand in the known stash of woods' porn at our local swamp/dump/BMX-hump track. Somehow, he did not manage to sell me brickweed. Good on you, parents! Suffice it to say: There were a hell of a lot of Metallica t-shirts visible in North Florida ca. 1984 onward. Like Il sole sotto la terra , in 1983 I was doggie paddling with the likes of "stage" metal-rock, a la Twisted Sister, with whom Metallica did their first Euro tour and developed the songs that would become your next quarry, ganews . But, for some reason I learned to loathe metal, favoring hardcore punk and, really, all flavors of punk available. I eschewed Master and Ride, along with this album. At this teen-age, I barely liked ....And Justice. Frankly, I was floating along in goody-goody land, wafting on the breezes of poseur-dom, and rarely living anywhere near a Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Relative Commentary to this RecordI don't own this one. I have a rip of Horsemen of the Apocalypse CD which collected No Life 'Til Leather among other rarities, from a now-dispossessed sibling of my wife. I got it after meeting him for the first time. He regaled all in the family room, around this time of year - actually, with his rendition of metal ballad, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". Later that evening, he pressed a CD-rip of this into my hands as we left. Gotta admit, it's a pretty sweet bootleg cover. THIS LP WAS IN THE BOX OF WATER DAMAGED LPS I FOUND IN THE TRASH THE OTHER WEEK. I'd never seen it before in my life and believe I may have shouted "WHAT IS THIS METALLICA ALBUM?!" as I came across it during my cleaning/sorting of the aforementioned water damaged lps.
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Post by ganews on Nov 30, 2016 0:07:17 GMT -5
What I was listening to at the time, instead of MetallicaI was still into JV metal, like Twisted Sister, Ratt, Van Halen and Quiet Riot. I also listened to a lot of Top 40 too, and was starting to really dig Duran Duran. Metallica was still completely unknown to me. The songs“For Whom The Bell Tolls” – Whenever I hear a bell ring on the local rock station, I get excited for about half a second, thinking it’s this song. It’s always AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” though. Aw man, Van Halen doesn't deserve that. And at least it's the best AC/DC song with the new guy.
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Post by Some Kind of Munster on Dec 1, 2016 12:17:37 GMT -5
This is an album that I don’t hesitate to say “changed my life” when I first heard it in grade 8 – it was cool as fuck and totally bad-ass and opened my eyes to the idea of metal music that could be about something. Strangely enough though, my Metallica phase only lasted about 8 months and I never bothered to get any of their other albums, even though I probably could have talked one of my friends into taping them for me. I discovered punk rock the following summer and by the time I started grade 9 I no longer thought the long-haired dudes wearing Metallica t-shirts to school looked all that cool. Still, I love this album and it’s by far my favourite of theirs. Fight Fire With Fire – This is a perfect kick-off – the acoustic intro then the slow fade-in of the heavy guitars and then it’s just thrash thrash thrash for the next four minutes Ride The Lightning – For me this song is always connected to the “Faces of Death” videos that I remember some of the older skateboard kids I tried to hang out with at the time talking about. I was a pretty delicate kid despite wanting to appear like a tough guy and just hearing about those movies traumatized me. So yeah, I was always thinking about the descriptions I’d heard of the dude being electrocuted whenever I heard this song. His eyes melted right out of his head, man! For Whom The Bell Tolls – This is where things really start getting good! I have read Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and while it’s great I don’t think anything specifically about it is captured in this song. As I recall, the book concerned itself more with the relationships between a group of rebels in the Spanish civil war and the on-the-battlefield stuff was more in the background for most of it (although it’s been a long time since I read it so I could be off base here. And yes, I read it solely because of this song.). This was one of the first songs I taught myself to play on guitar once I became slightly competent and it’s still one of my favourite things to play Fade to Black – I’ve got to respectfully disagree with Il sole sotto la terra here – this song fucking rules! Yeah, it’s a ballad but it’s a ballad about suicide and I always feel like it ends on a hopeful note – like, after the “Death greets me warm / Now I will just say ‘goodbye’” part the final soloing over the extended outro strikes me as dawn breaking after a dark night of the soul kind of thing. Also on a personal level, the first time I heard it still remains one of my single most memorable music listening experiences of my life. My friend Pete’s older brother had taped this album for me and Pete gave it to me at school one day. I started listening to it on my Walkman on my walk home for lunch and while I was digging the shit out of everything else, it wasn’t until I was on my way back to school that I got to “Fade to Black” and when the second acoustic part kicked in after the first intro solo I had to stop and sit down on the curb and listen to the whole thing twice before I could continue on my way to school, where I was promptly sent to the principal’s office for being late. That was over 25 years ago, and while its impact has dulled a bit over time I still get chills from that part. Trapped Under Ice – Another solid thrasher with some interesting imagery that also terrified me – after seeing that part of The Dead Zone where the kids fall through the ice I had an unnatural fear of being… trapped under ice... and this song nicely tapped into that. I still pump my fist in the air every time I hear the “Scream / From my soul / Fate / Mystified / Hell / Forever more” breakdown part Escape – Eh. It’s a decent song but I always kind of forget about it. Creeping Death – Once I became a contrarian punk, for some reason this was the only Metallica song that I’d claim to like for a few years. Not sure why I picked this one over any of the others but any time the subject of Metallica came up I’d loudly proclaim that “Creeping Death” was their “only good song”. This is some quality Ten Commandments metal though. Call of Ktulu – Back when I was obsessed with Metallica I had no patience for instrumentals and would usually fast forward this one which makes no sense since the whole point of Metallica was the riffage, but I think we’ve already established that I was a dumbass. I also read “The Call of Cthulhu” a few years later because of this song, so it can definitely be said that Metallica were a good influence on me at least in terms of literature.
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Dec 2, 2016 16:30:20 GMT -5
Never heard Ride all the way through until I was in my early-to-mid thirties. I bought a "scratched", used CD of this ca. 2004 at Everyday Music on Capitol Hill (Seattle, WA). It cost all of $5. I only had ...And Justice and Master up to that point. My wife likes this record, immensely. It's her snowboarding soundtrack. I'll just add that Cliff Burton is the glue that makes this band superior and cements its legend that continues to have power unto this day. He was the weirdo that the rest of the guys were in awe of and wanted to get on his wavelength.
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Post by ganews on Dec 3, 2016 18:24:43 GMT -5
Master of Puppets (1986) Pre-existing PrejudicesWell, I know it's the last album with Cliff Burton, so I guess I better enjoy it while I can hear it. Looking at the tracklist I know the first four songs on the album, so it's really only a mystery on the B side. Let's try fresh ears. Songs
"Battery" - Another grandpas guitars intro? Whatta buncha wimps! Nah, I like the slow intro to badass speed. Hetfield sounds fully like Hetfield to me now. What a great song. It makes me think of flying through a tunnel. Yet the first part of the bridge isn't afraid to slow it down before the shred. What's more, the solo feels truly integrated to the song. The ending repeats just enough times too, I think. You don't want it to end, but at 5 minutes it's just right. "Master of Puppets" - It's a very different feel from "Battery". It's also a little slower than I remember from the live S&M version, which is perfectly fine. What a great thing it would have been to see Metallica live and chant "master!" with the crowd. Except, it kind of falls off for me a bit with the strangled voices in the middle and laughing effects at the end. The slow instrumental bridge is very pretty, but it doesn't feel so tied to the first half. I prefer the return in the back half, but when the solo kicks in it again feels stitched-together for me, and it's definitely over-long. Still, I like it overall. I was and still am a pretty straight-edge kind of guy (not that I had ever heard that term as a kid or knew anyone who invoked it), and Metallica's anti-drug and anti-war messages really resonate with me past and present. "The Thing That Should Not Be" - Curiously, the top two Youtube versions of the album have the third and fourth tracks switched. I assumed the 10 million listeners would point this out. Anyway, this is off to a chunky start. "Hunter of the shadows is RIII-SIIIIING" is an awesomely intoned line. There's a lot of nice imagery, and I uniformly like the delivery. The lyrics aren't as meaningful to me, they just sound cool. (I never read Lovecraft. I think I tried on The Mountains of Madness a few years ago I didn't go very far. I was very into Edgar Allan Poe in middle school instead.) Again, this is a unique song that stands out in its sound. The solo must be the most recognizable yet with the swirly weirdness. Very good. "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" - I find "Sanitarium" (does anyone use the full title?) pretty OK as a song, though the lyrics are a little bit adolescent for me. As ballads go, I prefer "Fade to Black". The final speed-ups and outro feel a bit like an apology for making another ballad, but hey I like your ballads so far Metallica. At over 6 minutes, it would have been tighter without them. "Disposable Heroes" - This is the most aggressive sound since "Battery", and it's really, really cool. The changes throughout are good and comparatively subtle (vs. Kill 'Em All). I really dig the snarl of "Back to the front!" Every element is solid, and I'm realizing how much everybody misses Burton's bass. God, the whole chorus kills me. Man, I've been reading some WWI history yesterday and I'm really getting the itch. Instead of revisiting Trumbo or Remarque, I think I'll pick up some Hemingway. Does anyone make anti-war music anymore? The last time I heard something mainstream that had something to say was "Hammerhead" by The Offspring. Anyway, for once I'm really appreciating a super-long track. There's so much going on, I love it. Jesus, I had to pause and think when this track ended. I didn't expect to encounter something this good that I hadn't heard before. I'm angry that this is the first time I've heard this. "Leper Messiah" - Ooh, an indictment of religion! It's a simplified sound compared to what's come before, but it's still good. I like the more subtle touches of Lars' quick kicks and Burton's bass. The late pickup in tempo is natural, not apologetic like on "Sanitarium". "Orion" - Hmm, what is this new sound and very soft fade-in of drum and bass? Then we get fairly straightforward...oh, this is an instrumental...that's 9 minutes long. Is it worthwhile? Well, I do like that gong. And now for part two: I really dig the lilting bass, like this is my favorite bass work from Burton yet. Really, part two should just get its own song name. Part three: more of an extended outro than an instrumental that could have stood alone like the other parts. All in all, pretty good, if not quite as inspiring as the lyrical tracks and not quite as good as "Ktulu". "Damage, Inc." - But wait, there's more! Even though "Orion" would have made a fine closer. It's the first time for Metallica to be incorporated, and it is the most curious inclusion on one of their albums yet...until suddenly we're thrashing just as hard as we can, you guys. The whisper of the title is a little silly. GO! I unironically enjoy it when the singer calls attention to the solo by crying "go!" or even better "guitar!". Anyway, this is another good n' angry song, it's just that the transition from "Leper" to "Orion" to "Damage" was a bit awkward. They should have switched the order of the last two, because now this feels a bit like a 90s bonus track. Summary: Five stars. Absolutely their best album yet. My mind will be truly blown if they can top it, and yet there are great tracks to come ("One" is a favorite, and it's up next time). I don't think I could predict this album from their debut, though perhaps Ride the Lightning. I'm getting this CD post-haste so that I can listen to this in my car, the strongest impulse I've felt from any of the VS threads or Record Club selections. I want to tell everybody about it, and I'm only 30 years late. There's nothing else left I didn't say in the track-by-track. Favorite overall song: "Disposable Heroes". God damn, I did not expect something to beat out the aggression mainline of "Battery". But for once, I'm rewarding length instead of brevity because "Disposable Heroes" never got old. I listened to both tracks again, just to be sure. Favorite new-to-me song: "Disposable Heroes"
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Post by Il sole sotto la terra on Dec 3, 2016 22:18:54 GMT -5
I’m still working on wearing out my second cassette copy of this one. It’s more technical than Ride The Lightning, and certainly Kill ‘Em All, so even after almost 30 years, it still holds my attention pretty well. What I was listening to at the time, instead of MetallicaI was casting around for a musical identity at the time, so I didn’t discriminate much. I wasn’t much for Top 40 anymore, but hard rock, metal, oldies, instrumental surf, my mom’s Ventures LPs and the Beastie Boys all got some attention. By this time, I finally knew who Metallica was, since the really bad older kids who smoked dope behind the tire shop were always wearing the “Metal Up Your Ass” and glow-in-the-dark electric chair guy Metallica shirts. The Songs“Battery” – In the “Fight Fire With Fire” position, again we have a thrasher with a gentle acoustic intro. I like the way they metalized the intro before kicking into gear. For a raging opener, I always thought the pace lagged a little though. I often checked to see if the little red low-battery light was lit up on my Walkman. It really coulda used another 20bpm or so. “Master Of Puppets” – The opening riff is so awesome Overkill swiped it pretty much wholesale and no one gave a shit. Kirk went back to Exodus again, and reworked a riff from “Death and Domination” for the verses. In the “Ride The Lightning” tech-thrash position, this is easily the most technical piece Metallica had written to this point. I imagine people wonder what’s wrong with me as I pump my fist and shout along with the “Master, master!” part from about 3:15 to 3:30 in my car, but damn, it’s hard not to do it. I do agree with ganews that it’s a little bit of a Frankenstein’s monster in that it’s clearly a bunch of disparate parts stitched together. “The Thing That Should Not Be” – And here we have the “For Whom The Bell Tolls” slower-paced piece. Being a huge Lovecraft fan, I always wanted to like this one, but I didn’t. It’s just too damn slow. They totally botched the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred’s couplet too. "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" – Bleh. Thrash ballads suck. Marginally better than “Fade To Black”, but that’s just a contest to see which turd smells the best. “Disposable Heroes” – The “Trapped Under Ice” Side B opening thrasher here. This is by far the best song on the album. Eight minutes of relentless thrash, hampered only by Ulrich’s limitations as a drummer (What could a really good thrash drummer like Hoglan, Lombardo, Benante or Bostaph have done with this?). Nice gang shouts in the chorus, and some pretty kickass soloing. I am utterly incapable of not shouting along with “I WAS BORN FOR DYIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!” at 5:45. “Leper Messiah” – Here we diverge from Ride The Lightning a bit. It’s not thrash-lite like “Escape”, and it’s not epic like “Creeping Death”. It’s halfway between, and pretty lame. It does pick up at the end, and has some pretty nice soloing. “Orion” – The instrumental gets moved up one spot from Ride The Lightning, but it’s not without reason. This is a damn fine song, though it’s not nearly as epic as “The Call of Ktulu”. It’s more of a showcase for Cliff, who just absolutely kills it, not just here (check out the isolated bass track), but on the album as a whole. I never woulda believed it back in the 80s, but “Orion” works just as well as an acoustic duet as it does a metal song. “Damage, Inc.” – Since “Orion” was gentler than “The Call of Ktulu”, I think Metallica opted to close the album with a slice of pure thrash aggression. After Cliff’s intro, it kicks ass from wall to wall. Lyrically, it harkens back to Kill ‘Em All’s “thrash is rad” songs, but from a more oblique angle. It’s an effective closer, since it usually makes me let the tape auto-reverse and play through again. Final Thoughts To be perfectly honest, I think this album is a little overrated. It’s routinely at or near the top of any list of Greatest Metal Albums, and while I agree the highs are pretty high, I’m either lukewarm on or outright dislike half of the songs here. At the same time, I don't agree with the sentiment that this album killed thrash (that was AJFA). I don’t think it ever got above second place in my personal rankings over the years.
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Trurl
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Post by Trurl on Dec 4, 2016 9:00:08 GMT -5
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Post by repulsionist on Dec 4, 2016 15:00:58 GMT -5
More thoughts later, but I had this tape for a week in summer 1986 from previously mentioned burnout. Didn't get past "Battery" because... because I was preciously stupid. Agree with Il sole sotto la terra, not a perfect record; however, it is my favorite overall.
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Post by Some Kind of Munster on Dec 6, 2016 11:35:07 GMT -5
This is a very good album that I’ve never really given a shit about. As mentioned previously, my Metallica obsession was short-lived and centred entirely around Ride The Lightning so I didn’t hear Master of Puppets until I was already over Metallica AND after they SOLD OUT. Even listening to it now, while I can recognize that these are some objectively good-to-great metal songs there’s nothing here that really makes me go “HOLY FUCK I NEED TO HEAR THAT AGAIN!”, which is kind of strange, considering even Kill ‘Em All has “Hit The Lights”.
Obviously the title track is a standout, but for some reason it’s the only pre-Black Album Metallica song I ever hear on the radio so I’m a little tired of it.
I actually like “The Thing That Should Not Be” quite a bit – the slower pace adds a nice sense of dread that meshes well with the Lovecraftian lyrics and it’s one of the few on here that I find memorable enough to really remember what it sounds like once I’m done listening to it.
“Disposable Heroes” is a solid song but due to my fondness for poo-related humour I can never hear the “BACK TO THE FRONT” chant without thinking back to a friend’s claim many years ago that this song is actually about Lars’ poor wiping technique.
“Orion” is probably the song on this album I come back to most frequently these days – since it’s the only one that made the cut to be included on my 16GB phone’s playlist. There’s a lot going on here and for an 8-minute long instrumental it never gets tiresome. I kind of think the lyrics and Hetfield’s vocals on the rest of the album distract too me too much from the amazing musicianship on display here but this is just a well-crafted, multi-part cavalcade of riffage with some really interesting guitar tones (I especially like the bit that starts up just after the gong).
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Post by ganews on Dec 6, 2016 11:46:43 GMT -5
“Disposable Heroes” is a solid song but due to my fondness for poo-related humour I can never hear the “BACK TO THE FRONT” chant without thinking back to a friend’s claim many years ago that this song is actually about Lars’ poor wiping technique. Oh my god, that was great and now I willfully erase it from my mind.
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Post by ganews on Dec 7, 2016 12:22:52 GMT -5
...And Justice for All (1988) Pre-existing PrejudicesThis is sort of the one I've been waiting for, and that's because it has the song "One". "One" is generally my favorite Metallica song, partially because it was the first time I heard machine-gun drums (it would have been on the radio during a "Mandatory Metallica" block). What's more, I saw the movie version of "Johnny Got His Gun" when I was a freshman in my high school drama class. I'm not sure why we watched it, but I expect it was at the suggestion of a two-years-older friend of mine in the class named Seth. Seth was cool guy, intelligent but pretty slack and with an impressive knowledge of music that was rare in my tiny home town. (He had seen Jethro Tull live and described old Ian Anderson gamely jumping around on stage, which was awesome to me. [Yes, I just worked Jethro Tull into the Metallica review for which they lost the Grammy, and I didn't even realize while writing that happened for this album. {Yes, I'm proud of myself.}]) Seth told the class that "Johnny Got His Gun" was based on an anti-war book of the same name, and that Metallica's "One" was based on the movie based on the book. It very explicitly is, and the music video contains movie clips, but I doubt anyone else in that class had even heard the song. Personally, I went on to read and love that book, and it wrecked me. It's one of only two books that ever made me cry, the other being Flowers for Algernon. That's a lot to live up to for Metallica. Can this measure up to Master of Puppets without Cliff Burton? I know it made a lot of fans angry that they turned down Jason Newsted's bass until it was inaudible, and while that's not a good sign for me because I like bass, I don't care about fan loyalty or orthodoxy. Now that I know the band can do something as solid as "One" with "Disposable Heroes", I'm going to be optimistic even though I don't know any other songs from this album. Hey, it's their best cover art yet. Songs "Blackened" - We're off with a lot of snap and snare. I wish I didn't know about the turned-down bass, because I have to focus on not trying to listen for it. It's not a very complex song; things are black. I think it features a particularly good solo. "…And Justice for All" - It's not just that the bass is down, it seems that the drums are extra turned-up. It feels like a pretty OK balance between chug and structure, but I type that statement early in the song and there's a lot of time left. Great quote from genius.com here: "'Long and dour, the song remained out of circulation in Metallica concerts following the 1988-89 Justice tour because as Kirk Hammett put, 'I couldn’t stand watching the front row start to yawn by the eight or ninth minute.'" Yeah, we're more structured than the Kill 'Em All days, but this is extremely stitched-together. It's not much of a thrasher. "Eye of the Beholder" - They really like the slow fade-ins on this album, which would be OK if the songs weren't already feeling stretched. Oh my gosh guys, it's December: Hetfield's "do you see what I see / Do you hear what I hear" cannot help but sound like Christmas music. This song certainly isn't a thrash either, just a succession of chugs. Really the only thing that sounds complex is the drum changes. Like the title track, it feels overlong. "One" - Now here we go. I haven't been too big on Metallica's occasional use of sound effects before, but I think it sets the mood here. I adore the intro, and this song has a genuine progression. I forgot how different Hetfield's voice sounds here, younger and higher. And many of these vocals are double-tracked! He actually sings, "please God wake meeeee", and Hammett's high notes after are lovely. Why are people so down on Metallica ballads? Now for part two when the machine guns start: what a great transition this is. Ballad, then assault, then progressive increases in speed, then a killer solo. And since it is a gradual progression, nothing overstays its welcome. The speed at the end doesn't feel like an apology the way it did on "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)". "The Shortest Straw" - This has a good stomp and a little variance in lyrical cadence. It doth please me. I believe this is the fastest tempo, or at least the most consistent energy, since "Blackened". I like this cool breakdown and solo mid-song. We've got a Catch-22 reference, another favorite book from high school. Why didn't I listen to Metallica albums in high school, the optimal time in one's life for Metallica? Unlike early in the album, these changes feel much more natural. "Harvester of Sorrow" - This features some "One"-style plucking in the intro. I like the faded out vocal effect in the repetitions of the title. The song is slowed down from the previous eight minutes or so and isn't terribly memorable. "The Frayed Ends of Sanity" - This metallicized Wizard of Oz march intro is extremely silly, and I really like it there with no explanation. Frayed ends of sanity, indeed. The lyrics are pretty good. The music isn't bad either, but it's stretched long again. Like on "…And Justice for All" they seem to think that spacing the lyrics out among the eight minutes would help. Nope. James Hetfield laughs! "To Live Is to Die" - Another faded-in acoustic intro, this must have really pissed old fans off. Wait, what is happening here with this faded-in stomp? I see this track features Burton's composition. Well, it's the most boring chug yet with only pauses for strings. This is going at the bottom of the list of instrumentals. "Dyer's Eve" - Oh, you think you can buy me back with an actual thrash track after I fell asleep to the Burton memorial? Well, the meandering guitar doesn't mesh very well with the thrash. These lyrics are pretty good, but the song almost feels like going through the motions. Summary: There's no more lead bass, now it's lead drums on Lars Ulrich: The Album. It's their least thrashing-est album yet, which doesn't offend me as long as the songs are good. And a couple of them are. Not as good as the last two records, very different from the debut. It's not the bass I missed so much as the energy and well-composed songs. Favorite overall song: "One" Favorite new-to-me song: "The Shortest Straw"
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Post by Il sole sotto la terra on Dec 7, 2016 14:14:50 GMT -5
I still have my original cassette of this one. This album is fucking LONG, and really fades in and out while I listen to it.
What I was listening to at the time, instead of Metallica
Metallica! Anthrax! Megadeth! Exodus! Vio-Lence! Sacred Reich! Forbidden! Nuclear Assault! SLAYER, BITCH! THRASH ‘TIL DEATH!
In 1987, most of my friends were into hair metal, which wasn’t really my bag. I’d gotten bored with my mom’s Ventures LPs, so I figured out how to work the intimidatingly complex Sony TC-630 reel-to-reel tape deck we had and got pretty heavily into my dad’s stash of Beatles tapes. Still, I was getting drawn into some of the heavier stuff my friends listened to. Whitesnake? Poison? Nah. G’n’R or Crue? Mebbe a little better. Then one friend started listening to KOME’s late-night shock jock Dennis Erectus and told me he played some pretty crazy stuff. The first night I tuned in, he played “Eye of the Beholder”. That was it; I was a metalhead.
The Songs
“Blackened” – Grandspa’s guitars get thrown out in favor of a kinda boring drone fade-in. For the opening thrasher, this moves at a pretty staid pace. 25% faster and 25% shorter, and then we’d be talking.
“… And Justice for All” – Whoo boy. Metallica had like four two-minute songs they decided to combine into one big mess. Slow. Technical, I guess. There’s no real build or climax though. It’s just a bunch of pretty beads strung together into a not very interesting necklace. “Ride the Lightning”, “Master of Puppets” and this show a clear trend of decline in title tracks.
“Eye of the Beholder” – It must have been September of 1988 when I first heard this, and it was a revelation. I’d heard Metallica before – “Damage, Inc.”, but it was on like a tenth-generation cassette dub, and it sounded like what grindcore probably sounds like to normal people - just a muddy wall of drums, guitar noise and yelling. This was different. Nice and chunky. Two cool solos (the one we called “The Iron Maiden solo” and then “The METAL solo”). It’s not a thrasher by any means, and it gets repetitive, but I still have a soft spot for this one.
“One” – Fast forward though all the ballady shit, see if you can hit Play right where it starts to thrash. That’s how we rolled. It got me to read “Johnny Got His Gun”, so I’ll put it above “Fade To Black” and “Sanitarium”.
“The Shortest Straw” – The Side B opening thrasher. A little toned-down from “Trapped Under Ice” and “Disposable Heroes”, but it seems relatively concise for this album. Hetfield sounds really good here, and the soloing kicks ass.
“Harvester of Sorrow” – The “Escape”/”Leper Messiah” slow thingy. It’s the shortest song on the album, but it’s slow and boring and seems way longer. This might be where thrash started to evolve into the half-thrash groove bullshit that killed the genre in the 90s.
“The Frayed Ends of Sanity” – The “Wizard of Oz” guard thing is pretty weird, but I always liked the crash cymbal pattern in the intro. This one gets pretty repetitive- they play the same riff for about 30 seconds straight from 3:30 to 4:00, and then it gets a really good solo for about a minute, but then it’s back to another 30 seconds of the same riff again. Fifteen seconds on either side of the solo would have been just fine, guys.
“To Live is To Die” – I think I may have underestimated Cliff back in the day by thinking the “When a man lies, he murders some part of the world.” came to him from Merlin in John Boorman’s “Excalibur”. He seems like he could have been smart enough to come across it by reading the 17th Century German poet Paul Gerhardt, who originally wrote it. I know this is a bunch of fragments that Cliff wrote, but it’s even more of a mishmash than the title track. There is some nice chunky riffage here, and it might have been better to develop some of these ideas into individual songs instead.
“Dyer’s Eve” – The “Damage, Inc.” closing thrasher. This is good. I like the finger-tapping in the solo. I like the unnecessary tempo changes less. This one should have been balls-out from start to finish.
Final Thoughts
This is like Metallica said, “let’s make a record like Master of Puppets, but MOAR! Six minutes, bah! Make it 9:45. Play the riff ten times? No. Twenty-seven.” It’s more chunky than thrashy. It’s almost an hour and ten minutes long. It’s pretty damned repetitive, and kind of a chore to listen to in one sitting.
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Post by ganews on Dec 12, 2016 13:53:44 GMT -5
Metallica (1991) Pre-existing PrejudicesSo is this the one where they sold out, then? I don't friggin' care. They've been making great ballads and half-ballads since Lightning, and I think "Nothing Else Matters" is a good song. So they embraced some pop sensibilities, so what - no nine-minute tracks? Nirvana did that for Nevermind at the same time, and it's their best album. This one is full of hits, so I hope the in-between is good too. Songs"Enter Sandman" - Still a killer track. So great when the skins come in. And you know, it's a good melody. I don't care that it's not thrash, because it's plenty cool and has a great solo that's well-integrated into the song. Hetfield laughs twice, heh ha! The breakdown mid-song is great. The child repeating the prayer is such a good choice, as are the layered vocal effects on the fade-out. There's a reason a million stadiums use this to pump up the crowd. "Sad but True" - I like this sort of slow, inflated sound in the intro. It makes the chug a little more interesting, as do the dramatic pauses. The echoing of Hetfield's lines is good, and I continue like the vocal multi-tracking. Good to hear some bass. I had no memory of the solo, and it does feel a bit tacked-on. "Holier Than Thou" - Appropriate title for the first thrash-adjacent track in a while (and Justice only got one). While the first two tracks were just fine as is, this one could really use some more speed. I guess they wanted to keep a tempo to keep showing off Hetfield's vocal tracks. Hey, this bass solo is cool, all three seconds of it in which it just repeats the chug. This is no one's favorite Metallica track. "The Unforgiven" - I like the sounds in this: grandpas guitars, military snare, occasional bell effect. We also have another, even more successful experiment in Hetfield actually singing, which worked very well on "One". The acoustic solo is lovely, and there's a fine transition to the hard-rockin' solo. This is a very nice song, and I have no qualms about saying "nice" and "lovely"; those are compliments. "Wherever I May Roam" - I really like this sitar-like effect. And just when it looks like another ballad, this injects a little energy, a little menace. The opening growls to start each verse are basically comprehensible, which sounds great. This song features the first sort of change, mid-verse, it occurs to me. Changes used to be a cornerstone! Man, this is a great song with great construction. Great multi-track vocals, great integration of Hammett in the verse, a cool bass line, a short-but-sweet solo. It's tied for longest song on the album, but it never stretches (well, maybe that last minute before the long fade isn't adding anything interesting). "Don't Tread on Me" - I like the drum n' bass pairing. This is a different thing alright, so strong it's almost gimmicky. This is only the second song yet that I haven't heard before, can you believe it? Aside from the rhythm foundation, no other element here is especially unique. Hetfield's bellow of the title words is pretty over-the-top. "Through the Never" - Ah, thrash...well, for interludes between verses, anyway. After the complexity in the first six tracks, this is extremely straightforward. It picks up when it's time for the solo, but the most interesting part is the tempo downshift that comes after. It manages to end before it stretches too long. "Nothing Else Matters" - Now we're really slamming on the brakes. Do...do I hear orchestral strings in the back? No wonder so many people were pissed. But this is another great song, and another in the blockbuster series "Hetfield Sings!" They really are personal-sounding lyrics, if not actually that deep. I don't know if I would have placed this song here exactly, but it's hard to give an alternative. They can't very well put two ballads back-to-back (I mean, they could, but they won't). "Of Wolf and Man" - Punch! Punch! Punch! Punch! Do we have your attention now that you fast-forwarded, you ungrateful metalhead? This is a very cool song, with the most prominent bass in like five years. I like the every subtle changes. The solo is a little tacked-on again, but it's short enough. Hmm, a spoken-word interlude? This is extremely different, not like the child's prayer in "Sandman" that was more of an effect, but it's used well. "The God That Failed" - We are extremely back-loaded with bass, which is fine. This song is apparently about Hetfield's mother's cancer, which is a helluva lot more personal than the relatively abstract "Nothing Else Matters". The guitar solo is the most interesting so far; it's very noodly but incorporates new sounds. This track is kind of all over the place, but I like it. "My Friend of Misery" - Hey, did you guys know we let our bassist play this time? This one was supposed to be an instrumental, which may show by the free form in the lyrics. The vocals are much more experimental than usual, featuring the first whisper since "Damage Inc". Of course, beyond the halfway point it's all instrumental playing around. They should have gone all or nothing, because occasional vocals just stretch the track. Other parts sound like sample from elsewhere in album, like the drum rhythm in "Sandman". "The Struggle Within" - Are we finishing the album with the gimmicky, military snare from "The Unforgiven"? No, but we're close to thrashing again. I'm sure many purists found lines like "what the hell?" and "hypocrite!" to be spot-on. This track is kind of an uneasy marriage between the old thrash and the new sound. It's not bad, but it very much sounds like a compromise. Go! Summary: If Justice was Lars Ulrich: The Album, this is James Hetfield: The Album. He even plays the solo during the world-conquering track "Nothing Else Matters". But that's a fine thing! No song severely overstayed its welcome, at least not compared to previous albums. The lyrics here seem much less...political? idealistic? I'm not sure exactly, but it's OK. This album surely deserves its giant sales. I'm not rushing out to buy it like Master of Puppets simply because I've already heard its tracks so many times, the syndrome of every album with this many huge singles. Favorite overall song: "Wherever I May Roam" Favorite new-to-me song: "The God That Failed". Fully half this album was very well-know to me! New feature! Running tally of Hetfield laughs: 4 Running tally of Hetfield sings: 3
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Post by Il sole sotto la terra on Dec 12, 2016 15:17:26 GMT -5
Coming home from our annual month-plus vacation to the Midwest was always disorienting. Suddenly, bikes with banana seats weren’t cool anymore. Everyone got haircuts like Nick Rhodes. None of the same Top 40 songs were on the radio anymore. Somebody grew four inches. The mousy girl got contacts and turned out to be really cute. Metallica put out a new album, and girls liked it. Like, actual pretty girls. In retrospect, I probably shoulda run with that, but the path of a trve kvlt metal warrior is not an easy one to travel. What I was listening to at the time, instead of MetallicaLike Some Kind of Munster and repulsionist , the span of time where I considered myself a Metallica fan was relatively brief. They were like a gateway drug, and pretty soon, I needed harder stuff. At some point in the fall of 1989, an older, more dissolute metalhead pointed me towards KFJC, the local junior college radio station where my dad had been a DJ in the early 70s. On Monday afternoons, Buckaroo Banzai hosted the “Blow Up Your Stereo Show”, and on the first day I tuned in, he played “Pull The Plug” by Death, followed by “Intoxicated” by Obituary. In the span of about nine minutes, I graduated from thrash metal to death metal, and within weeks, I was all about Death, Obituary, Pestilence, Repulsion, Terrorizer, Napalm Death, Carcass, Morbid Angel and Bolt Thrower. Pre-existing Prejudices
Looking over the tracklist, I’ve heard “Enter Sandman”, “Sad But True”, “Wherever I May Roam” (none of which made me want to check out the rest of the album), and “The Unforgiven” and “Nothing Else Matters” (which made me actively not want to check out the rest of the album). I’m pretty sure I probably heard some of the others blasting out of the open door of a Bitchin Camaro shrouded in ditchweed smoke in the parking lot behind the bowling alley back in 1992. The songs“Enter Sandman” – I saw the world premiere of the video for this song on MTV, and… it was OK. Recognizably Metallica, and it doesn’t sound like it was recorded in a cardboard box. Bluesier solo. A spoken word prayer, with a kid? WTF? Kinda dumb video, but it was cool when the truck crashed into the bed. I wasn’t totally against thrash, as I’d bought Persistence of Time by Anthrax on the day it came out in 1990, but nothing about “Enter Sandman” made me want to quit listening to the Human Waste EP by Suffocation to run out and buy this album. “Sad But True” – Plodding, directionless nonsense. I remember pissing and moaning about Metallica with my friend Steve back when this first came out. I was complaining about this song, and he said, “Yeah dude, and it’s the best song on the album. Sad but true, man. Sad but true.” Pretty cool guy, that Steve. Went to some weird college without grades and lived in a dorm named after something in Middle Earth, just like any good metalhead nerd would. “Holier Than Thou” – Holy shit, is that Peter Frampton talkbox guitar? Yes, it is. OK, maybe it’s more like Motley Crue talkbox guitar. This is pretty generic riff-rock. “The Unforgiven” – This starts out like a pretty cool spaghetti western soundtrack, and then it turns into a suck-ass thrash ballad replete with strings, which also completely forgets to actually thrash. It just gets stuck in that middle half-rocking part of “One”. The first part of the solo is some fern bar acoustic noodling bullshit, then it gets a little better. Lyrically, this one is pretty strong, at least in its potential appeal to angsty teenagers (though like “Escape”, it seems too Randian to these old, jaded ears). “Wherever I May Roam” – Sitar, that’s pretty cool. Finger cymbals, that’s pretty cool too. This one actually integrates the softer acoustic stuff and the metal stuff pretty well. The solo is super weedly-wah. Hetfield sure went from “youthful rawness” to “self-parody” pretty quickly, didn’t he? Yeah yeah, indeed. “Don’t Tread On Me” – Ooooooooooooookay. Metallica does "West Side Story". Stompy groove stuff follows. These lyrics, they are stupid. So stupid. So slow. So boring. Pantera did this better with “Walk”. “Through the Never” – This starts out pretty strong. But then there is a very boring riff under the verses, and weird vocal effects, and ping-pong hi-fi stereo demonstration crap. The soloing isn’t half-bad though, and there’s some nice riffing in the middle. Overall, it’s pretty samey and repetitive. “Nothing Else Matters” – This was the second song I heard from this album, after “Enter Sandman”, and it’s pretty much what made me never want to listen to Metallica again. I kept thinking, “OK, this is where it starts to thrash. Wait, no… Just a solo… OK, now is where we thrash out. Uh… Wait, what? It’s over? FUCK YOU METALLICA!” This is some BULL FUCKIN SHIT. You said that if you ever wrote a tender love song, it would be about beer. This ain’t about beer. WHY DID YOU LIE TO US, JAMES? They shoulda just called this song “Blue Balls”, because there’s NO FUCKING CLIMAX. “Of Wolf and Man” – Some interesting vocal lines here. Pretty decent solo. More spoken word? UGH. Really? And it’s about a werewolf transformation? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. “The God That Failed” – Generic stompy chug riffing. I’m kinda liking Kirk’s solos on this album. Maybe it’s just that they’re the only thing that really stands out. This song is way too long. “My Friend of Misery” – Hey, it didn’t really register with me until the intro here, but there’s actual bass on this album! Slow, boring, generic filler in general, but it’s got a pretty good solo. “The Struggle Within” – Nothing of interest here, except the solo again. Curiously, Hetfield gets it bass-ackwards, and yells “Go!” after the solo. At least it’s short. Final ThoughtsSitars, Sondhiem, spoken word and spaghetti westerns. At least they were trying something a little different, but Metallica could have easily cut at least half of these songs. This is really front-loaded, and the whole back half of the album is utterly disposable. Nothing here makes me regret not listening to this album for the last 25 years, and even if I hear one of the better songs on the radio, I’m still gonna check the other rock station to see if they might be playing some Zeppelin.
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Post by Some Kind of Munster on Dec 13, 2016 13:47:51 GMT -5
Man, I'm falling behind here! I haven't even added my thoughts on Justice and we're already onto the Black Album
(Condensed thoughts on AJFA are as follows:
This is a long-ass album.
Only Metallica album I own on physical media because I found a used vinyl copy for $5 some years ago. I never listen to it though because it's a pain in the ass to keep flipping a record over after every two songs.
Favourite part of the album is the staccato drumming and the weird clipped way Hetfield says "Blackened. Is the. End" in "Blackened".
The Wizard of Oz thing in "Frayed Ends of Sanity" convinced one of my high school friends that it was a clue that the album could be synced up with Wizard of Oz à la Dark Side of the Moon and he spent many hours trying to figure out exactly when to hit play to make it work.
Knew a girl named Harvinder in grade 8 and we used to call her "Harvinder of Sorrow" because of this album. She listened to Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson and had no fucking clue what we were talking about. If you're reading this Harvinder, I'm sorry for being a dick.
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Post by Some Kind of Munster on Dec 16, 2016 9:25:48 GMT -5
I’ve never actually listened to the Black album in its entirety and I went into this expecting to find that my teenage assessment of it as sellout garbage was too harsh – after listening to their previous four albums in succession and noting how much more polished each one became I figured this would seem like a natural progression. Well, I gotta say after listening to it that I liked it even less than I expected to. Hetfield’s vocals are way too high in the mix (he’s not a singer or lyricist who should be taking the spotlight) and the overall sound is just slick, stadium-ready rock. I know I gave them shit for making … And Justice For All a bloated, overlong mess but I miss the classical ambition and literary pretensions that drove them to create “suites” rather than songs. This album strikes me as the genesis of modern butt-rock – you could draw a straight line from the Black album to Nickelback. As for the songs, there were only a couple that I wasn’t familiar with and none of them really did much for me either. “Don’t Tread on Me” reminded me a lot of Pantera (which I now notice Il sole sotto la terra mentioned as well). The only one that jumped out at all was “My Friend of Misery”, and while I wouldn’t even say I particularly liked it, I thought the line “They say the empty can rattles the most / The sound of your own voice must soothe you” was a nice couplet and very out of character for Metallica (it sounds more like something you’d hear in an alt-country song) and the guitar break before the proper solo kicks in has a nice atmospheric sound. Mostly this experience has taught me that teenage Munster was very astute in his dismissal of things that were NOT COOL and I should listen to that guy more often.
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repulsionist
TI Forumite
actively disinterested
Posts: 3,557
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Post by repulsionist on Dec 16, 2016 16:59:41 GMT -5
+10K metal spirit points for "butt-rock", Some Kind of Munster. *sincerely* The Black Album is where I left Metallica. I wasn't their greatest champion, as those reading through this thread might note. As soon as "Enter Sandman" showed up in heavy, heavy, heavy rotation on MTV at all hours of the day, I felt further and further distance from their work. Mind you, when this came out, I did earnestly watch "Headbanger's Ball" and MTV's 120 Minutes to scrape the culture barrel when I couldn't find out enough about obscure crap via the phalanx of 'zines that circulated in the 90s. This album's videos were a lowlight of those times spent between commercials when I expected to hear and see something great. Thanks, Rikki Rachtman!
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Post by Il sole sotto la terra on Dec 16, 2016 21:39:25 GMT -5
This album strikes me as the genesis of modern butt-rock – you could draw a straight line from the Black album to Nickelback. And ganews thought I was being brutal.
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Post by ganews on Dec 16, 2016 21:43:01 GMT -5
Guys the long-established Discography Reviews tradition is for everybody else to like the album more than the reviewer.
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