Metallica Retrospective: Part 1 and 2
Intro
It’s really hard to overstate the impact that this band had on the metal world. Since their formation in the early 80’s the band has been a leader in the sound of our genre of music. I was training a new volunteer at the station and they asked me what the best Metallica album is. I haven’t went out of my way to listen to Metallica in years, so I really wasn’t read to answer this off the top of my head.
I really enjoyed going through the Nightwish catalog to find what it is in their sound that I really like, and figured that that innocuous question was as good of an excuse as any to do the same with Metallica. I’ve spent the last week listening to their albums (basically on repeat) to find an order to rank their albums from best to worst. So while the release radar is slowed down for tour season let’s review some classic metal albums.
The List Part 1
It’s really crazy to see their discography and how small it is. For a band that’s been around for 40 years it’s wild to see they have 10 studio albums, and are planning on releasing an 11th eventually. The band says they have 10 songs completed and tried to make the most of quarantine.
Kill Em All
Easily one of the best debut albums of all time. It’s no wonder this band became such a big hit so fast. The album is loaded with tracks that had serious staying power through their career. Weird part about this album compared to their later works is no ballads, or slow emotion sections on tracks. Pure thrash. Clearly establishes what the bulk of the band’s catalog is going to sound like.
A few standout tracks that I selected for the show playlist. I tried to pick some tracks that aren’t the SMASH hit songs from the albums that get a shitload of radio play. “Hit the Lights,” right off the bat you know what the fuck Metallica is all about, fast drums, faster guitars, unique vocals, and aggressive lyrics. Even the chorus on this song is catchy enough to stick around with you. Not a bad way to start off an album, and this was the track that generated so much word of mouth fame for the band. “No Remorse” sick intro bit and the rhythm change for the chorus section is great. “Seek and Destroy” A pure classic from Metallica that I put on this weekend when hanging out with friends and noticed that all the boys were singing along with the song during the chorus. It’s physically impossible not to sing the chorus to this song if you are trve kvlt.
Score: 4/5 this is what a debut album should be.
Ride The Lightning
“Fight Fire With Fire” opens the album with an iconic soft plucked guitar as the drums start to build and we hit a crescendo that marks the real start of the song. Something that really sticks out with this album more than Kill Em All is the classical element of Burton’s bass guitar playing. He plays the bass in a fashion that adds a lot of flavor to the guitars, but is hard to pick out. This album has a stronger sense of sound than their debut album which is to be expected for a sophomore release. In my opinion this album is better than Kill Em All, but there were more tracks on the later that I put in my, “Tracks I Like” playlist. The first half of this album is incredible and 4 of the 8 songs are absolutely iconic for the band. In the first 4 tracks we get “Fight Fire With Fire”, “Ride The Lightning” which is a ripper in its own right. “For Whom The Bell Tolls” aka the track that every metalhead knows by heart. I can’t remember the last time I heard the song, and I still know all the lyrics. The opening power 4 concludes with “Fade To Black” which is a legendary song from the band. “Creeping Death” towards the end of the album is another personal favorite.
Score: 5/5 One of the most influential and best metal albums of all time.
Master of Puppets
This is a big one for Metallica. This is the album that really sticks out to me when I listen to it because of when I listened to it. This was my first Metallica cd and the one that really started to put me on the path of being a little metalhead as a tween. Much like with Ride The Lightning the album starts with a slow dramatic opening on “Battery” and moves into a faster, more aggressive main course. Again the front half of the album is loaded with all the tracks you think about when it comes to this album, but the back half is no slouch either. “Master of Puppets” is the song that is played at every sporting event in North America and probably half the sports events in Germany and Finland as well. “The Thing That Shall Not Be” is the first real slowdown we see in how the band plays, and this is followed up with the second most famous track on the album “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” which is by far the slowest paced Metallica song they’ve released at this point.
Score: 5/5 One of the most influential albums on my musical tastes as a kid.
…and Justice For All
This is probably the most important album in my life. I spent a lot of time listening to this cd in the car on my Sony Walkman Sport cd player. A lot of Pokemon have been caught listening to this album. When I was reviewing this album for this post I decided to throw it on, and lay on the couch and play some Pokemon Crystal. I’m not usually someone who gets caught up in nostalgia, but listening to this album while playing Pokemon really hit hard. The album starts off with “Blackened” which is one of my favorite tracks, then we get into “…and Justice for All” which just has a badass chorus. “Eye of the Beholder” is one of my favorite songs of all time. I can’t listen to this song without headbanging. Unfortunately the song is still very prescient given our current climate. Even the back half of this album is loaded with some awesome tracks like “To Live is to Die”. This is the first album from the band that is loaded with bangers from start to finish.
Score: 5/5 My personal favorite Metallica album.
Stay tuned for next week when we cover the rest of their discography and give their albums a final rank.
Metallica Part 2
We are going to continue our journey through the Metallica discography. I’ve
Metallica album
For some reason this album has kind of a mixed reaction in the metal world. I think it’s very obviously the first album where Metallica had totally shifted away from thrash and was strongly in the hard rock camp. While this is an album that dads across the world will appreciate, there are some great tracks. The album starts with a fan favorite, “Enter Sandman,” and continues into a string of tracks that would go on to chart for the band, and the album doesn’t outstayed its welcome. They managed to balance the album with good songs up front and a few great tracks towards the end to keep you engaged. This is the last album that I can say is worth listening to from start to finish. I am not a big fan of this hard rock sound for the band, but the album isn’t bad. After this we enter the weird period of Metallica where their too big to fail reputation kept them shielded from reality.
Score: 3.5/5
Load
I had a pretty hard time finding a track on this album that I enjoyed. So far this is the longest album to listen to. It’s another step in the direction of dad rock for the band. The only track that really stood out when listening to this album is “King Nothing”. The album isn’t bad per se, but it’s a lot longer than it needs to be. If the album was 45 minutes I could justify scoring this album higher, but as is the length and bland sound of the album makes this review short, and sweet.
Score: 2.5/5
Reload
The opening track “Fuel” gets you invested in the album and the smattering of good tracks sprinkled throughout the album keeps you invested. Better than Load and much better than St. Anger means this middling album sticks out as a gem at this point in their career. “The Unforgiven II” is a fun track, and the other standout track is “Better Than You”. “Where the Wild Things Are” also makes the cut with its great riff. The vocals on the song are weird for Metallica, but at this point in their career I’ll take what I can get.
Score: 2.5
St Anger
It’s really impossible to overstate how bad this album sounds compared to every other Metallica album or even compared to other albums released in 2003. One of the things that’s nice about Metallica is that they don’t sit in the same musical genre their entire career, but the genre shift from hard rock to alternative metal just doesn’t work. They clearly don’t have enough rhythm to be a well timed alt metal band. There are sections of “Frantic” that make me think the band was going for a Korn sound. The album famously has no guitar solos or down tuned bass, and while some reviewers praised that; I think they are idiots for doing so. This album is not a “heroically brutal reflection” as Ian Watson of NME said. I would say it’s an experiment in how a famous band can release a totally awful album and get praise based on their name only. The band might have been authentic when writing this album, but the album is authentically bad.
The songs are much longer than they needed to be, and poor mixing makes the instrumental parts painful to listen to. Whoever thought the line, “I’m madly in anger with you,” should be kept should never be let into a studio again. I couldn’t finish this album.
Score: 1/5 truly an embarrassing mark on their career
Death Magnetic
Who let them write another album with insanely long songs? What did we do to deserve this? The one benefit of this album is the drums don’t sound like they were recorded with a tin can, but the songs are all long, and sound the same. There really aren’t clear sonic differences between tracks. At least we get some interesting solos to make up for the bland tracks. “The End of the Line ’’ has a weird pedal effect during the guitar solo that I don’t really think works, but the main riff of the track is great. The mixing on the album crushed any dynamic feel the album should have. It’s super apparent with the drums on “Broken, Beat, & Scarred”. I think that this album has great vocals, good guitar work, and good drums. The mixing is really what hurts the overall sound of the album which is sad considering it seems like all the members put more effort into this album than St. Anger. The band returned to their hard rock sound that they spent their middle career developing, and it does lead to a very coherent sound on this album. I really enjoyed a few tracks on this album such as “The Day That Never Comes”, “All Nightmare Long” despite the bad mixing.
Score: 2.5/5 I’m not really sure what to score this. Compared to St Anger it’s fantastic, but it’s just mid compared to the rest of their catalog.
Hardwired… to Self-Destruct
Why is this a split album? What happened to the engineer who mixed this? It’s nice that the band has a return to form with their sound as this album is a throw back to their thrash roots. The opening track is fast, in your face, and very reminiscent of how the band used to open albums. “Hardwired” and “Now that We’re Dead” really stuck out to me when I was listening to the first cd on this strange split album. The other thing that you notice after a few tracks is how different Het’s vocals sound on this album compared to the rest of their catalog. It’s nice the band is trying a new soundmix for vocals, but this just isn’t it. Guitar solos are great, and some tracks like “Moth Into Flame” really stick out for having some great guitar work. The album has a few long dad rock tracks which really break up the flow of the album and I’m not sure if I’m a fan of. I think that we all agree that the best Metallica albums are their earlier, faster, more aggressive stuff. Who likes these tracks, and who keeps talking them into writing them is beyond me.
Score: 2.5/5 Overall not a bad album.
Final Ranking
- …and Justice For All
- Ride the Lightning
- Master of Puppets
- Kill ‘Em All
- Black
- Load
- Reload
- Hardwired… to Self-Destruct
- Death Magnetic
- St Anger