"kill 'em all"
Year: 1983
Country: US
City: Los Angeles
Label: Warner
Format: CD, LP
Tracks: 10
Time: 40 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Thrash Metal
"ride the lightning"
Year: 1984
Label: Warner
Format: CD, LP
Tracks: 8
Time: 50 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Thrash Metal
"master of puppets"
Year: 1986
Label: Warner
Format: CD, LP
Tracks: 8
Time: 50 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Thrash Metal
Master of Puppets is the third studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica. Originally released on March 3, 1986. It was the last album with the bassist Cliff Burton, who died in a bus accident in Sweden during the album's promotional tour. Artwork, designed by Metallica & Peter Mensch and painted by Don Brautigam, depicts a cemetery field of white crosses tethered to strings, manipulated by a pair of hands in a blood-red sky. Instead of releasing a single or video in advance of the album's release, Metallica embarked on a five-month American tour in support of Ozzy Osbourne. The European leg was canceled after Burton's death in September 1986, and the band returned home to audition a new bassist.
Master of Puppets peaked at number 29 on the Billboard 200 and received widespread acclaim from critics, who praised its music and political lyrics. It was certified six times platinum by the RIAA in 2003 for shipping six million copies in the United States, and was later certified six times platinum by Music Canada and platinum by the BPI.
In 2015, Master of Puppets became the first metal recording to be selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential thrash metal albums of all time. Main runouts of 1986 vinyl releases per country.
"and justice for all"
Year: 1988
Label: Warner
Format: CD, 2 x LP
Tracks: 9
Time: 60 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Thrash Metal
"idem"
Year: 1991
Label: Sony
Format. CD, 2 x LP
Tracks: 12
Time: 60 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Thrash Metal
After years of wild thrash metal, Metallica simplified everything and became the biggest band in the world. The Black Album’s dark, muscular sound would permanently alter the course of heavy music.
June 29, 1990: Deep in the guts of Toronto’s CNE Stadium, four shaggy, sweaty, booze-swilling horsemen of the apocalypse are hatching a cultural coup. James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, and Jason Newsted just opened up for Aerosmith, their childhood heroes. Judging by the muffled roars emanating from the arena, Steven Tyler’s got the world wrapped around his finger. The same will be said for Metallica within a year’s time. They won’t settle for anything less than a supervillain death grip.
Granted, Metallica’s approach up to this point has proven hugely successful, a byzantine war machine powered by a spartan tactic Ulrich will later outline to critic David Masciotra as simply: “not fucking up.” Judging from their generous album sales, sold-out tours, Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental Grammy nomination, and hard-won laurels despite crickets from the establishment, “not fucking up” should ensure that their wallets remain as stuffed as the arenas.
But these are the guys who gave us Kill ’Em All; they won’t stop until they’ve slayed Poison, Mötley Crüe, Ratt, and every last one of those platinum-blonde, spandex-wearing false heirs to the heavy metal throne with their own weapons: massive riffs, clean vocals, sharp arrangements, and layered mixes that gush from the speakers like knife wounds. They’ll even tap Bob Rock—the man behind Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet, an anti-Metallica album if there ever was one—to ensure the heist goes off without a hitch.
Naturally, Metallica will name this declaration of war and independence after themselves. It’s the best-selling album of the past 25 years, with currently over 20 million copies sold worldwide, more than Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The U.S.A. or Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon. Even if you handed out three Black Albums to every citizen in Ulrich’s native Denmark, you’d be left with a warehouse full of CDs. Few bands have achieved such ubiquity so that if you know literally one thing about metal music, it is the six-note opening riff to “Enter Sandman.”
Though Metallica were neither unknowns nor underdogs when they recorded their fifth studio album Metallica, the status quo as dictated by music critics, disc jockeys, and MTV framed them as such. Throughout the ’80s, Metallica and their Big Four peers—Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax—challenged metal’s emergent portrait of pomp by way of extreme fundamentalism. In her 1992 book Heavy Metal: A Cultural Sociology, Deena Weinstein compared thrash metal to the Protestant Reformation, framing it as a reaction to corruption: “Both movements [the Reformation and thrash metal],” she wrote, “charged that the established form had become corrupt through extravagance, and both supported a return to the essential message, stripped bare of all adornment.”
Metallica’s rapid ascent throughout the latter half of the decade—from Golden State basement fiends, to Big Four figureheads, to Grammy nominees—shattered the cultural status quo. The group’s first studio three albums—1983’s Kill ’Em All, 1984’s Ride the Lightning, and 1986’s Master of Puppets—are a trio of bloodthirsty, whip-smart chimeras. Their din bears traces of blues, punk, hard rock, progressive jams, and—thanks to bassist Cliff Burton’s virtuosic strivings—even classical music. By identifying the genres’ cathartic common ground and amping up the drama, Metallica reframed the heavy metal revival as a serious movement, as opposed to a perennial retread.
Burton’s tragic death in September 1986 intensified Metallica’s ambition. Shortly after Burton’s death, they’d recruited a new bassist, Flotsam and Jetsam frontman (and lifelong Metallica fan) Jason Newsted; and two years later, they released ...And Justice For All. Between its extensive runtimes, unusual time signatures, and arcane arrangements, it remains a fan-favorite whose genius is often overshadowed by the fact that it sounds like it was recorded through a tin can. Its ramshackle mixing kills the dynamic frisson: Hetfield and Hammett’s dueling riffs collapse into a static, mind-numbing roar; Ulrich’s fills hit like raindrops instead of the usual mortars; Newsted’s bass lines are nearly impossible to make out, positioned so far back in the mix that a group of fans took it upon themselves to release a bootleg, bass-boosted version of the album titled ...And Justice For Jason.
Nevertheless, ...And Justice For All positioned Metallica within striking distance of the mainstream. The LP debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard Charts—a feat practically unheard of for a metal band at the time—and went platinum within nine weeks. It was their most successful crossover to date thanks to its music video for “One,” which got them on MTV. And yet, remarkably, the band looked back on their latest triumph with disappointment. As Metallica’s fanbase grew, more non-metalheads came into the fold. This influx of casual listeners created a communication gap, which was particularly evident in concert. Speaking with Masciotra, Ulrich identified the album’s associated “Damaged Justice” tour as the end of the honeymoon and, arguably, Metallica as most people knew it. “Early on the tour, we started wondering why the songs were so long, progressive, and all-over-the-place,” he said. “We felt that the material did not connect well live because it was too introverted and cerebral.”
In Ulrich’s view, Metallica had taken the progressive side as far as they could. The only way for the band to move on was to look back, to invoke the bad-asses who’d inspired them, and so many others, to pick up guitars and drumsticks in the first place: barnstormers like Motörhead, Black Sabbath, the Rolling Stones, and so on.
Also, the next album needed to not sound like shit. In a huge leap of faith, Metallica began their years-long relationship with Bob Rock—a straight-shooting, detail-oriented guitar band guru who’d manned the boards for Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, and other arena mainstays—to take the reins on production. He accepted their offer after witnessing them live: “I had bought the Justice record, and I just didn’t get it,” he later told Masciotra of the album, which he described as thin. “Then when I saw them play live after the Cult, and they walked off stage, I thought, ‘That’s not the band on the Justice record.’
Far and wide, Rock’s production comprises Metallica’s greatest source of controversy. While it may be tempting to paint Rock as a sinister interloper, Adam Dubin’s behind-the-scenes documentary A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica positions him, instead, as a grizzled studio sherpa nudging the band away from clunky performances or technical mishaps, often to considerable pushback from his charges. “Lars, will you make the next couple versions a little more peppery off the top? A little more weight into it?” he says Ulrich at one point, like a parent asking his son to clean his room. Lars seethes, “If you want weight, I’m your fucking guy!” Elsewhere, he reminds Hetfield to sing and play at the same time, only to get another tantrum in response: “You wanna hear it with vocals? Go sing it.”
The producer left a new mark on the group: he turned Hetfield from an untrained screamer to a seasoned rock singer, pushed the frontman to step up his lyrical game and brought Newsted out of the shadows, recasting him as the stoic yin to Ulrich’s frenzied yang.
And then, of course, there’s his showstopping mix: the subject of countless late-night road-tests and in-studio arguments, and the long-awaited antidote to the muddled palettes of Metallica albums past. Nowhere is this more evident than in the intro to “Enter Sandman”: Hammett’s riff creeps in from the background, a night-stalker inching closer by the minute. Hetfield swoops in behind him, the violent churn intensifies and, upon Ulrich and Newsted’s entry, finally overflows in a froth: cacophonous, chilling, and definitively anthemic.
Metallica’s twelve tracks may be sorted into three categories: angsty arena anthems, furrowed-brow ballads, and tamer, hybridized takes on Metallica’s famous pit-starters. Aside from “Holier Than Thou” and “Through the Never,” which offer red meat for the black-leathered fans of old, the album skews simplistic, melodically and lyrically. Whereas Ride the Lightning and ...And Justice for All prioritized instrumental stunts over melody, Metallica bets it all on Hetfield, a paradigm shift made all the more noticeable by his bandmates’ restraint. Instead of firing off fills, Ulrich keeps it simple, locked in 4/4 throughout (“It’s a little bit like building a house,” he crows in A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica, chest puffed, shit-eating grin on his face, “If you have a good foundation, then…”) Newsted mostly swears by the root notes, but gives millions of would-be bassists their first homework assignment with “My Friend of Misery”’s percolating refrain. While he’s given plenty of room to show off his solos (”Don’t Tread on Me” and “Of Wolf and Man” are particularly fiendish), Hammett’s riffs skew tamer, more deliberate, and subservient to the Hetfield’s pained yowls.
Hetfield pivots between devastating croons and razor-throated yells like a seasoned “American Idol” contestant. “I’m your dream/I’m your eyes/I’m your pain” he sneers on “Sad But True,” a song Rock labelled the heavy metal “Kashmir.” This technique inevitably draws the listener’s focus to Hetfield’s lyrics, which, while perfectly suited for stadium sing-a-longs, aren’t exactly Pulitzer material. You can see the low-hanging rhymes coming from a mile away—“real” and “feel,” “be” and “see,” “you” and “do.” More damningly, it saps his revealing personal narratives of their latent emotional heft.
“The God That Failed” is a bittersweet ode to Hetfield’s mother, a Christian Scientist who succumbed to cancer because she refused to treat it through any means other than faith. And yet, for every devastating couplet (”The healing hand held back the deepened nail/Follow the God that failed”), there’s two chunks of clunky poetry not far behind (”Find your peace/Find your say/Find the smooth road on your way”; “Pride you took/Pride you feel/Pride that you felt when you’d kneel.”)
The simplicity proves far more successful on “Nothing Else Matters,” an acoustic ballad which, however ham-fisted, stands as one of the album’s most revolutionary moments. Here, smack dab in the center of metal’s hyper-masculine universe, we have one of the genre’s most fearsome luminaries singing the praises not of Satan, sex, or the good sweet leaf, but rather a woman. Given the overarching cultural context, Hetfield’s insistence that he’s “Never cared for what they say/Never cared for games they play/Never cared for what they do/Never cared for what they know” scans as a middle finger to all the meatheads who think intimacy and metal are mutually exclusive. His solo acts as the band’s closing argument, undeniable proof that vulnerability could both rock and sell (*Review by Zoe Camp ).
"load"
Year: 1996
Label: Warner
Format. CD, 2 x LP
Tracks: 14
Time: 70 min.
Genre. rock
Style: Alternative Rock
Year: 1997
Label: Warner
Format: CD, LP
Tracks: 13
Time: 60 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Alternative Rock
"garage inc."
Year: 1998
Label: Universal
Format: CD, 3 x LP
Tracks: 20
Time: 136 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Hard Rock
"San Francisco symphony orchestra"
Year: 1999
Label: Universal
Format: 2 x CD, 3 x LP
Tracks: 21
Time: 110 min.
Genre: classical
Syle: Symphonic Metal
"St. Anger"
Year: 2003
Label: Universal
Format: CD, 2 x LP
Tracks: 12
Time: 70 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Thrash Metal
"death magnetic"
Year: 2008
Label: Warner
Format: CD, 2 x LP
Tracks: 10
Time: 70 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Thrash Metal
"hardwired to self-destruct"
Year: 2016
Label: Blackened
Format: CD, 2 x LP
Tracks: 12
Time: 60 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Thrash Metal
For many Metallica fans, the wait for a follow-up to 2008’s relatively well received Death Magnetic has been a mixture of feverish anticipation and premonitory nervousness. By dragging out this album’s gestation for the best part of a decade, Metallica have hinted at a reluctance to commit to any one musical path. The emergence of the turgid and overlong Lords Of Summer in 2014 didn’t do much to cultivate optimism either. But 2016 has already been a great one for the biggest heavy metal band of all time, not least because the two tracks they allowed us to hear this summer were, by most people’s reckoning, as good as anything Metallica have released since the Black Album. Joyously, the good news doesn’t end there, because while it is far from perfect and, at 88 minutes, a good half an hour too long, Hardwired… To Self-Destruct is easily Metallica’s strongest album in 25 years.
It opens with the title track, a vicious burst of prime thrash with an irresistible chorus and enough spirit and venom to silence anyone who thought Metallica were too old to nail this stuff anymore. In contrast to much of Death Magnetic’s hideous production and distracting sloppiness, Hardwired… is precise and brutal. Maybe Lars has been practising more, or maybe some computer trickery is involved, but Metallica sound closer to the devastating machine of Master Of Puppets than they have in decades. The same applies to Moth Into Flame, another monstrous slab of authentic heavy metal that exhibits strong links to the band’s 80s triumphs but without sounding like a half-hearted attempt to go back to their roots.
In fact, nearly all of this album’s first disc is up to the same standard, most notably Atlas, Rise!, with its irresistible Maiden-saluting guitar harmonies, strong whiff of NWOBHM worship and a blistering solo from Kirk Hammett. ‘Die as you suffer in vain!’ roars Hetfield, ‘Own all the grief and the pain/Die as you hold up the skies/Atlas, rise!’ Never mind the music, it’s unbelievably thrilling to hear Papa Het singing lyrics like that, instead of the clumsy self-help twaddle he’s peddled in recent times. Similarly, the slow-burning, Sabbath-infused menace of Dream No More is gloriously grotesque, as Cthulhu makes his first appearance on a Metallica album since 1984, ‘inhaling black skies’ as Hetfield vividly puts it.
The downside to Hardwired… comes on its second disc. Furious closer Spit Out The Bone aside, the songs suffer from the same problem that has plagued every Metallica record since Load: an inability to self-edit. A few superb riffs aside, Confusion, Am I Savage? and ManUNkind are too long and lacking in incisive dynamics. Here Comes Revenge is the best of a patchy bunch, but the less said about plodding, forgettable Lemmy tribute Murder One the better.
The negative stuff doesn’t really matter, though. The best news is that Hardwired… is, for the most part, a strong metal record with some fantastic songs and countless moments that will make you think ‘Yes! Metallica!’ You may even desire to hear some of these songs live. Most importantly, you will feel relief that the excruciating eight-year wait was worth it (* Review by Dom Lawson ).
"San Francisco Symphony"
Year: 2020
Label: Blackened
Format: 2 x CD, 4 x LP
Tracks: 22
Time: 120 min.
Genre: classical
Style: Symphonic Metal
Year: 2023
Label: Blackened
Format: CD, 2 x LP
Tracks: 12
Time: 70 min.
Genre: rock
Style: Thrash Metal
Having spent two decades making progressively worse albums, Metallica finally came good again with 2008’s Death Magnetic and 2016’s Hardwired... to Self-Destruct, both of which harked back to the inventiveness and sheer energy of their 1980s material. In their wake, 72 Seasons, the Californians’ 11th album, feels like a step backwards. While the 12 songs here are indisputably as heavy as anything they’ve ever recorded, across 77 long minutes the tempo is far too often set to “chugging”, except on a couple of bracingly thrashier numbers and the more nuanced closer, Inamorata. Imagine 1991’s Black Album – the record that catapulted them into the big league – with barely any of the hooks or melodies and you wouldn’t be too wide of the mark.
At least there is greater adventurousness lyrically. James Hetfield delves back into his troubled childhood (as he first did on 1988’s Dyers Eve) for some of his most personal lyrics to date, most notably on the bleak Chasing Light: “Lost his way through wicked streets, but he is someone’s little boy”. (Not every song is this revealing – the furious Lux Æterna‘s lyrics instead nod to early inspirations Diamond Head as well as their own Motorbreath.)
For all Hetfield’s soul-baring, however, as a whole 72 Seasons seems to mark the end of their late-career renaissance and is ultimately far more solid than spectacular ( * Review by Phil Mongrediene ).
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METAL MILITIA
"a tribute to Metallica"
Year: 1994
Label: Black Sun
Format: CD
Tracks: 12
Time: 40 min.
Genre: rock
Sttyle: Thrash Metal
