METALLICA — Metallica (review)

METALLICA — Metallica album cover Album · 1991 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Pekka
It's easy to think that Metallica's status and career changed completely after the release of the Black Album and its multi-million sales but in reality the band had been going towards the top all the time. They were already selling millions of records with their uncompromising prog thrash with pretty much no radio airplay and packing arenas around the world, so when you add to this the simpler song structures, more streamlined sound and radio play, voilà. You've got yourself some international rock superstars.

They may have sacrificed a lot of the complex structures, speed and aggression but they were still friggin' heavy as hell, best example of course being the legendarily massive riffs of Sad But True, a track unfortunately severely overplayed by rock radio and the band themselves. Their thrash past is still evident on tracks like Holier Than Thou and Through the Never, but otherwise the change in style and sound is a major one. Everybody knows Enter Sandman, The Unforgiven, Wherever I May Roam and Nothing Else Matters and how they broadened the idea of what Metallica music is, but my favourite tracks of the album are among the more rarely heard of. The holy trinity of this album for me is Of Wolf and Man, The God That Failed and My Friend of Misery, The God perhaps being the very favourite nowadays. A fantastic vocal performance by James (as on the whole album, up until the end of the 90s he just kept on getting better and better), one of the best Kirk solos ever and Lars showing he's at his best with this kind of slow and heavy pounding. And Jason who we get to hear for the first time delivers a massive bottom.

When reviewing this album it's difficult to balance between the way I felt when I listened to it for the first time, the 50th time and now years and years later the 500th time. When I first got my hands on it sometime in the late 90s I spent a long time listening to absolutely nothing else. And loved every listen. What it resulted in was of course that then I spent a long time unable to listen to the album at all, after which I slowly returned it to my occasional menu, a process that most of my most precious albums have gone through.

Most of the album has stood the test of time very well and sound-wise it's still one of my all time favourites from any genre. Though essential for being a big factor in introducing the masses to metal, musically it's still quite far from their finest works.
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