This album got so much shit from the metal faithful back in the mid 90s. Grunge had taken over the world. Metallica got hair cuts, bought cigars and became more popular than ever before, except to the faithful diehards who cried, "sell-outs."
So, is Load a load of shit, like so many dubbed it back in the day or is it something else?
Ain't My Bitch. Starts out on a good note...get rid of the pics of these guys with the short hair and cigars and it sounds like a natural follow up to The Black Album. Definitely more rock than thrash but it's cruising right along and it's angry and there's a good groove in this song. You pissed? Put this on loud, drive fast, play the steering wheel like a drum and you'll feel better. The staccato riffing in the chorus is as fast as any of the thrash riffs on Ride the Lightning. This song has variety. Hugely produced vocals, overdubbed and layered. The song moves, grooves, and kicks ass. Almost makes me want to shake my ass.
2x4 This song is more in the vein of Alice in Chains than it is Testament, Slayer, or Anthrax. It's heavy. It's grooves. James still sounds angry. Kirk kills the wah.....Lars keeps time. Still great sound on the drums. The bass is dancing around down on the bottom. Last song and this song sound like there might be some keyboards floating around on it to fill the sound out. Not sure. I always seem to hear different sounds on Metallica albums but then realize it's just their guitars.....Nice slow solo by Kirk around 330...very Frusciante sounding. Far more emotive than blazing. Good song.
The House that Jack Built...dark, brooding guitars. Dark lyrics sung well. Good harmonies strung about. Some talk box guitar. Strong chords in the chorus. Nothing stands out as being overtly good or bad.....but a good song.
Until It Sleeps...Bass and drum start. Understated. Vocals fit the mood. The chorus kicks in heavy. Lyrics dark as fuck...James is now totally comfortable sharing his insanity. This song pinpoints and articulates the possession of anxiety dead on. It rises up...you hold on and ride the wave "until it sleeps" Definitely in my top 10 Metallica songs. Good bass sound under and driving the song. Great guitars all over this thing.
King Nothing...Nice sustained droning guitar to start. Jason's bass sounds good. James's rhythm comes in heavy and dirty. Lars bangs the shit hard like always. Again, it's dancing and grooving and I want to shake my ass. Metallica were definitely going in another direction here and I guess that's why everyone was so thrown aback at the time. Some more keyboard sounds but i think they are guitars...maybe a flanger effect? Really dark lyrics.
Hero of the Day...nice picked guitar to open. Gentle drums by Lars....he can play without beating the fuck out of the skins. Good bass plunking here A bit of the flanger again????? The lyrics to this song kill me....It opens with "mama they tried to break me." Knowing what James said in Dyer's Eve and in The Unforgiven it's easily seen how much pain is in him and how disillusioned the world has made him. He was not prepared for the world he stepped into as a man. In this song he addresses his mom and notes the comfort of the light in the window at home. Home is where things are safe and love is found. But the world he's in now causes him to feel (which he hates to do) and the world tries to break him and all the while he tries to convey to his mom that fist he's made for all these years can''t hold anything or feel anything. He says, "I'm not all me." Somewhere out on the road he's gotten lost and he asks his mom, all mothers, can't you hear your babies' cries. Again, another song that's not thrash but thrash couldn't convey this emotion. They do throw some double bass into the middle of the song as it builds.
Bleeding Me....another soft delicate song. Really gentle vocals by James. He even hits some high notes. Lars plays hard again. Cool leads on this. Great guitar tone. Grungy rhythym sound. Another effectively emotional song.
Cure...ok. It fits in with all that came before. Nice guitar groove and straightforward drumming. Fun solo by Kirk at 240...
Poor Twisted Me...Interesting echoed beginning. Song builds as each player comes in. Again i hear the Stones/Aerosmith twin guitar interplay thing. Cool lyrics...I get Hetfield. Maybe that's why I'm such a staunch Metallica defender when I hear cries of sell outs. Or maybe it's because i have some perspective and see the later days of Zeppelin as their weakest...you can't be awesome all the time over an extended time(unless you're me). Cool lyrics. Nice soloing 245. Cool guitars on this one. Some slide? Good drumming here....a lot of work on the snare. There are some tom fills...they are as loud in the mix as the earlier albums, maybe that's why people thought Lars stopped drumming.
Wasting My Hate...cool grooving picked opening. Muted vocals...then the high hat changes tempo...one,two....boom. Great grunt by James to kick if off....uggggggh. Cool interplay between guitars then it all rolls together. Pure anger in vocals. Aerosmith,Stones like guitar interplay...textured. Some cool twang in the guitars. Good drumming by Lars. Maybe the angriest vocal delivery by James. I love the idea that James takes his self-loathing (the kind that killed Belushi, Farley, Candy, Cobain, etc) and says he isn't going to waste that shit on someone else. He's going to save it. It's like "fuck you, you're such a piece of shit i won't waste emotion on you. not even hate. I'll save that shit for me because i enjoy my anger. so if i see you, I'll smile and be nice and polite because it aint' worth spending an emotion on your weak ass." That's some dark hostility there....One of my all time favorite Metallica songs. The lyrics definitely give it a boost in my appreciation, but as I give it a close listen, it all works. It's a song with depth, texture, variety and it moves and emotes.
Mama Said...a true acoustic ballad by Metallica. Nice soft amplified acoustic guitar. Nice singing by James. Sad content. Country leads...steel guitar? If not, nice job in recreating the sound by Kirk. The song builds and gets heavy. Overall it gives some nice texture and depth to the album.
Thorn Within....interesting start. All the players are playing, but they come in at different times, doing different things. Slow build. Nice contrast between the two guitars throughout the song. Good riffing in the bridge/prechorus. Still hearing some flang/wah....Mid tempo song.
Ronnie...although this song is full of "non-Metallica" songs, this is the misfit of the album. Not really sure what it is...not really blues or country...not metal. Just generic rock. Worst song on the album....probably only included because it was about "Ronnie"...who I'm guessing was a friend of James at one point. Dont' really like this one at all.
The Outlaw Torn....it comes in at almost 10 minutes. For an album that generally gets away from the epic grandiose structures of And Justice For All, the end with this. Cool emotive guitars and really good singing by James...heavy drums by Lars. Cool chorus...really good singing by James. "If you see me start to come undone, stitch me together...." good lyrics. This song takes its time getting to where it wants to go....well written. All the parts fit together...it builds and calms....eventually leading to the climax of a final chorus and then just plays out...almost in a jam until it codas out.....
Not sure exactly how to grade this one. It's got some real good songs on it, two of my all time top 10. There's a couple of clunkers as well. The album is much different than the early days but not that much of a departure from the Black Album. Listing to all of the albums over and over again in their entirety makes it pretty easy to see the growth from Puppets to Justice to Black to Load. Kill Em and Ride were the infant stages of this band....Puppets and Justice the adolescence and Black is where they hit their prime. They become men. Load is the later stages of manhood, not too old yet, but mature enough to see that the passions and fervor of adolescence can't be continued forever.
Is Load Metallica's equivalent to Zeppelin's Presence? If Bonham hadn't died, where would those dudes have gone next? Presence wasn't a good showing. The conundrum of Load is this: Metallica defined themselves as the a monstrous force only to redefine themselves here as something less than a monster. There are glimpses of the past beast, but there are so many bits that stand out as being so foreign to the world they previously created. The only way to look at this is in isolation and there are some true gems on here. But the clunkers that stink the joint up linger far too long....
Grade: B
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Metallica -The Black Album
This album sounds so much better than any album before or after. Bob Rock did one hell of a job. How awesome would it have been if the record label let them just go with the all black cover instead of the stupid grey snake?
The album opens with perhaps their most famous riff in Enter Sandman. Again, another song about how fucked up James is. He's a thinker, trapped in his mind. The worst time of existence for a thinker is that time before bed when there's no distractions from your mind. You can make it through the day by being occupied and watching tv and socializing...etc....but when you lie down to bed in the small hours and wait for "never-never land" to come, you "dream of wars, dream of lies...and of things that will bite." The riff is so good and so simple. The song builds nicely. Kirks has some nice solos in it. Definitely their biggest hit, deservedly so.
Sad But True....Huge song. Huge drums just like the rest of the album. Great opening. Nice slow dirgy pace. The sound on this album is so monstrous....had to be recorded in a big room. Nice echo on the vocals. The drums just pound. Lars doesn't pummel in the same manner of Keith Moon yet he plays by feel. Townsend often ripped Moon for his inability to keep good time. Lars's playing has a natural feel. It plays to the song. Technically, he's not superb by any means. But there is emotion in his playing. Kirk solos like a mother fucker in this one. Lyrics = Hi, my name is James and I'm really fucked up.
Holier Than Thou...an uptempo number. Super repetitive start. Good riff. Not as good as the first two songs. Hetfield really gives it the trademark elongated last syllable delivery...
The Unforgiven...nice acoustic guitar at beginning. Nice slow electric picking. Jason's bass is heavy here. It sounds good on this whole album. Welcome to Metallica Jason. The verse parts are sludgy and heavy. I think I remember James saying that they wanted to do the "anti-power ballad." The choruses would be soft and gentle and the verses heavy. Jason's bass stands out on this track. It's driving and thick. The more I listen to Metallica, the less I hear Lars as a time keeper but more of a enhancer of sound. James's voice is delicate in the choruses. Good song structure. Good playing. Really good guitar by Kirk. Nice balance between the acoustic leads and the screaming electric leads in the middle of the song.
Nice sitar sound to open Wherever I May Roam. I think Jason plays an 8 string bass on this. He plays something other than a regular 4 string bass to get that thwack sound...This is another standout song. Just a great rock song. Nice harmonies...Nice loud choruses. Definitely in the top 10 of all time Metallica songs. This is just a monster. Great mid tempo riff and good leads. Can't hear this song and not see the on the road montage from the video. Just like The Unforgiven and old angry shirtless guy.
Don't Tread on Me...Metallica's attempt at an anthem. Sucks.
Through the Never..Better than Tread but still doesn't match the other songs on this album. Once the lyrical verses kick in it's good. There is some cool guitar work but the song isn't stellar. The chorus is cool because of the stop/start parts.
Nothing Else Matters...so slow. So soft. It's good. It shuts the album down after starting so strong and then muddling through the last two songs. Great song. Beautiful guitars. Nice singing by James. Put some headphones on and there is so much depth and so much to listen to on this. There's definitely strings all over this along with some acoustic guitar mixing nicely with the electric guitar. And for a ballad, Lars's drums are banging...he hits hard, always. Love the kick drum on this. BOOM. BOOM. And no matter what you say about Lars as a drummer, when he does his kick, snare, snare, kick, kick, thing, it sounds cool.
Of Wolf and Man....starts out urgent. Nice interplay between the two guitars playing rhythm. Cool vocals by James. Another metaphorical song? Does the werewolf represent the anger that grows in James? Analysis for another time. Great banging drums. Jason's bass is fucking great...right in the pocket. This song just grooves. Love it.
The God That Failed....Lyrically, I love this song. Love that it opens with Jason's bass. The guitars kick in and the sound is fucking huge again. I know a band doesn't want to recreate the same album over and over again but they should've stuck with this studio, this producer, this mixer and engineer. The sound on this is so good. Like Kill Em All, all players can be individually heard all over this album but it sounds so big. Gigantic.
My Friend of Misery...another song that opens with Jason's bass. Kick drums and open chords kick in....really straightforward beat by Lars. The kick drum and the snare are so big. I keep using that description, so big. So huge, Gigantic, but this whole album truly is. This song has some pretty straightforward and simple riffs and some excellent vocals by James. I think I hear a cowbell in there.....Jason's bass makes this song. Guitars in the middle break down are all over the place...I hear 5 or 6 different things going on. The leads almost sound like a Deep Purple keyboard solo. Almost. Then Kirks starts blazing and wah-wahing all over the place about 5:10. There is definitely cowbell on this. Kirk keeps soloing.
The Struggle Within....starts off with a war time march. Nice stop/start riff. Chugging. Uptempo tune. Good angry vocals by James. Some Warrior Soul sounding slides down the neck of the guitar. Lars's snare sounds so sharp on this. This song is heavy...fast...and interesting. It's not a typical Metallica song but it bounces. Kirk's solos are rarely boring, almost always listenable. Interesting way to close the album...the riffing at 3 minutes is killer. The song falls short of the best on this album but ahead of the two stinkers in the middle.
Because of the mediocrity contained in tracks 6 and 7, this album falls short of the A+ I gave Justice and Puppets. But the sound is soooooooooo good it's hard not to say this isn't their best. James's singing is better than ever, Jason's playing can be heard and it's damn good, and Lars's drums are titanic. Kirk's solos are listenable and interesting, as always. They scream. They emote. So what to do. There's not a bad song on Puppets or Justice. Of course some are not as good as others but they're all good. This album is so listenable and maybe the best sounding album of the 90s.
Grade: A
The album opens with perhaps their most famous riff in Enter Sandman. Again, another song about how fucked up James is. He's a thinker, trapped in his mind. The worst time of existence for a thinker is that time before bed when there's no distractions from your mind. You can make it through the day by being occupied and watching tv and socializing...etc....but when you lie down to bed in the small hours and wait for "never-never land" to come, you "dream of wars, dream of lies...and of things that will bite." The riff is so good and so simple. The song builds nicely. Kirks has some nice solos in it. Definitely their biggest hit, deservedly so.
Sad But True....Huge song. Huge drums just like the rest of the album. Great opening. Nice slow dirgy pace. The sound on this album is so monstrous....had to be recorded in a big room. Nice echo on the vocals. The drums just pound. Lars doesn't pummel in the same manner of Keith Moon yet he plays by feel. Townsend often ripped Moon for his inability to keep good time. Lars's playing has a natural feel. It plays to the song. Technically, he's not superb by any means. But there is emotion in his playing. Kirk solos like a mother fucker in this one. Lyrics = Hi, my name is James and I'm really fucked up.
Holier Than Thou...an uptempo number. Super repetitive start. Good riff. Not as good as the first two songs. Hetfield really gives it the trademark elongated last syllable delivery...
The Unforgiven...nice acoustic guitar at beginning. Nice slow electric picking. Jason's bass is heavy here. It sounds good on this whole album. Welcome to Metallica Jason. The verse parts are sludgy and heavy. I think I remember James saying that they wanted to do the "anti-power ballad." The choruses would be soft and gentle and the verses heavy. Jason's bass stands out on this track. It's driving and thick. The more I listen to Metallica, the less I hear Lars as a time keeper but more of a enhancer of sound. James's voice is delicate in the choruses. Good song structure. Good playing. Really good guitar by Kirk. Nice balance between the acoustic leads and the screaming electric leads in the middle of the song.
Nice sitar sound to open Wherever I May Roam. I think Jason plays an 8 string bass on this. He plays something other than a regular 4 string bass to get that thwack sound...This is another standout song. Just a great rock song. Nice harmonies...Nice loud choruses. Definitely in the top 10 of all time Metallica songs. This is just a monster. Great mid tempo riff and good leads. Can't hear this song and not see the on the road montage from the video. Just like The Unforgiven and old angry shirtless guy.
Don't Tread on Me...Metallica's attempt at an anthem. Sucks.
Through the Never..Better than Tread but still doesn't match the other songs on this album. Once the lyrical verses kick in it's good. There is some cool guitar work but the song isn't stellar. The chorus is cool because of the stop/start parts.
Nothing Else Matters...so slow. So soft. It's good. It shuts the album down after starting so strong and then muddling through the last two songs. Great song. Beautiful guitars. Nice singing by James. Put some headphones on and there is so much depth and so much to listen to on this. There's definitely strings all over this along with some acoustic guitar mixing nicely with the electric guitar. And for a ballad, Lars's drums are banging...he hits hard, always. Love the kick drum on this. BOOM. BOOM. And no matter what you say about Lars as a drummer, when he does his kick, snare, snare, kick, kick, thing, it sounds cool.
Of Wolf and Man....starts out urgent. Nice interplay between the two guitars playing rhythm. Cool vocals by James. Another metaphorical song? Does the werewolf represent the anger that grows in James? Analysis for another time. Great banging drums. Jason's bass is fucking great...right in the pocket. This song just grooves. Love it.
The God That Failed....Lyrically, I love this song. Love that it opens with Jason's bass. The guitars kick in and the sound is fucking huge again. I know a band doesn't want to recreate the same album over and over again but they should've stuck with this studio, this producer, this mixer and engineer. The sound on this is so good. Like Kill Em All, all players can be individually heard all over this album but it sounds so big. Gigantic.
My Friend of Misery...another song that opens with Jason's bass. Kick drums and open chords kick in....really straightforward beat by Lars. The kick drum and the snare are so big. I keep using that description, so big. So huge, Gigantic, but this whole album truly is. This song has some pretty straightforward and simple riffs and some excellent vocals by James. I think I hear a cowbell in there.....Jason's bass makes this song. Guitars in the middle break down are all over the place...I hear 5 or 6 different things going on. The leads almost sound like a Deep Purple keyboard solo. Almost. Then Kirks starts blazing and wah-wahing all over the place about 5:10. There is definitely cowbell on this. Kirk keeps soloing.
The Struggle Within....starts off with a war time march. Nice stop/start riff. Chugging. Uptempo tune. Good angry vocals by James. Some Warrior Soul sounding slides down the neck of the guitar. Lars's snare sounds so sharp on this. This song is heavy...fast...and interesting. It's not a typical Metallica song but it bounces. Kirk's solos are rarely boring, almost always listenable. Interesting way to close the album...the riffing at 3 minutes is killer. The song falls short of the best on this album but ahead of the two stinkers in the middle.
Because of the mediocrity contained in tracks 6 and 7, this album falls short of the A+ I gave Justice and Puppets. But the sound is soooooooooo good it's hard not to say this isn't their best. James's singing is better than ever, Jason's playing can be heard and it's damn good, and Lars's drums are titanic. Kirk's solos are listenable and interesting, as always. They scream. They emote. So what to do. There's not a bad song on Puppets or Justice. Of course some are not as good as others but they're all good. This album is so listenable and maybe the best sounding album of the 90s.
Grade: A
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
And Justice For All
This is going to be more brief than previous entries...i just don't have that kind of stamina. I've been listening to Metallica without break for at least a week and a half, the last couple of days focused on Justice through St. Anger.
Even though Jason's bass is lost in the mix the guitar tone is so thick and fat it's not needed. The kick drum on this album is HUGE!!!! Listen to this album on a good system with a subwoofer and you will literally feel the metal.
Blackened contains some great song writing, drumming, and guitar playing. The sound on this album is orchestral. The song structures are sweeping. They alternate bewteen overpowering and softly subtle. The last minute of Blackened is totally balls out. It's thrash. My old pal Brian used to say Justice is where they sold out....I don't see it here. This track is killer.
All the screech that was in early Hetfield vocals is gone. His voice is more rugged and harsh.
And Justice For All....starts out with some mellow guitar plucking. Cool interplay beween both guitars and then when the drums kick in and the power chords strike, it's monstrous and epic. It's the sound of triumph. This song comes in at almost 10 minutes. Great simple tom fills by Lars. Bouncy lead riff interplay with the tom fills before the Judas Priest twin harmony leads. This song just goes on and on in that 2 minute intro just boucing about.
Hetfield takes a turn from getting into some personal demons on Puppets to a sociological critique here. Justice is epic and huge and ferocious while not full of any filler. A very tough thing for a 10 minute song.
Eye of the Beholder...a mid tempo start. Great lyrical content regarding perspective. Some sort of flanger-sounding effect on the vocal. Great rhythm guitar on this track as well. A lot of great stop/start parts. The solos sound layered about 4 minutes in and give it an orchestral string section feel.
One...Metallica's first hit. What a way to make a mark on the mainstream. It starts out so simple and subdued. Kirk's solos are so heartfelt and moving. There is intangible emotion flowing through each note. When Lars's 20 gigaton kick drum kicks in it gives this simple intro weight. Again here's a song that seems to be a simple criticism of war, but James could also metaphorically attacking his attacks of frozen panic. The protagonist is living but not feeling. He hates life. He goes through it but doesn't want to. He's separate from it and wants to just die, it'd be so much easier than being this entity who is unable to realate. When this song escalates to the "darkness imprisoning me..." part it just lurches, stops, lurches, stops and is so brutally heavy and fast at the same time. Lars's double bass in conjunction with the rest of the band is just awesome.
The Shorest Straw chugs right along with a heavy groove and some cool drumming by Lars again. Good guitars here. Once the song kicks into full speed it's uptempo and blistering. Another really good song.
Harvester of Sorrow....cool picked string melody. Then the distorted guitars pick up the tune and then it kicks into the main riff. The drums remind me of an idling funny car. Slow paced and heavy as fuck.
The Frayed Ends of Sanity...the Wizard of Oz flying monkey chant makes this song so incredibly awesome. Saw them play the beginning of this live back in 89. They only did it for about a minute but it was great. Lots of stop/starts in the beginning of this one. Once the vocals begin the song just slays. Every song on this album just has so many parts. Each one works with and compliments the next. The Black Album was the only logical place to go after this. There was no way to top the songwriting on this, in regards to epicness. Slayer followed Reign in Blood with South of Heaven. Pantera just kept trying to get more kick ass with each release and the songwriting started to suffer.
To Live is to Die...A Monumental Instrumental. Slow, heavy, and sludgy. Cool leads in the middle. The dirge just keeps plodding on. It could send you into a trance. A great mellow interlude in the middle. The harmonic guitar sounds, especially when the volume is turned up and down on one of the guitars remind me again of an orchestra...I actuallly thought there were strings on this song until I really listened. I believe they get these sounds out of their guitars. Cool soft acoustical ending that leads right into....
Dyer's Eve. Another Hetfield therapy session. This song starts so blazingly, blistering fast there was nowhere else for Metallica to go after this but slower. This is as fast as it gets kiddies. This is the pure unadulterated sound of pure rage and hatred. It's directed toward parents but it's a total critique of the harsh world that awaits children as they grow, mature and lose innocence The world is an uncaring and brutal place. This song poses a fairly heavy question....as a parent do you shelter your child from the harsh, brutal reality of the world as much as you can in order to protect innocence or do you purposely expose them to it and become the destroyer of the innocence in order to protect against such disillusionment and confusion? The song blazes from start to finish. This is in contention for my all time favorite Metallica song. So fast, so heavy, so blazing, so angry.
Again, the production and mix is questionable on this album. The sound on everything after Kill Em All is not very good. For a great fucking band, they sure as shit couldn't get the sound right after Kill Em until the Black Album...their critical and commercial breakthrough. But is it their best?
Grade: A+
Even though Jason's bass is lost in the mix the guitar tone is so thick and fat it's not needed. The kick drum on this album is HUGE!!!! Listen to this album on a good system with a subwoofer and you will literally feel the metal.
Blackened contains some great song writing, drumming, and guitar playing. The sound on this album is orchestral. The song structures are sweeping. They alternate bewteen overpowering and softly subtle. The last minute of Blackened is totally balls out. It's thrash. My old pal Brian used to say Justice is where they sold out....I don't see it here. This track is killer.
All the screech that was in early Hetfield vocals is gone. His voice is more rugged and harsh.
And Justice For All....starts out with some mellow guitar plucking. Cool interplay beween both guitars and then when the drums kick in and the power chords strike, it's monstrous and epic. It's the sound of triumph. This song comes in at almost 10 minutes. Great simple tom fills by Lars. Bouncy lead riff interplay with the tom fills before the Judas Priest twin harmony leads. This song just goes on and on in that 2 minute intro just boucing about.
Hetfield takes a turn from getting into some personal demons on Puppets to a sociological critique here. Justice is epic and huge and ferocious while not full of any filler. A very tough thing for a 10 minute song.
Eye of the Beholder...a mid tempo start. Great lyrical content regarding perspective. Some sort of flanger-sounding effect on the vocal. Great rhythm guitar on this track as well. A lot of great stop/start parts. The solos sound layered about 4 minutes in and give it an orchestral string section feel.
One...Metallica's first hit. What a way to make a mark on the mainstream. It starts out so simple and subdued. Kirk's solos are so heartfelt and moving. There is intangible emotion flowing through each note. When Lars's 20 gigaton kick drum kicks in it gives this simple intro weight. Again here's a song that seems to be a simple criticism of war, but James could also metaphorically attacking his attacks of frozen panic. The protagonist is living but not feeling. He hates life. He goes through it but doesn't want to. He's separate from it and wants to just die, it'd be so much easier than being this entity who is unable to realate. When this song escalates to the "darkness imprisoning me..." part it just lurches, stops, lurches, stops and is so brutally heavy and fast at the same time. Lars's double bass in conjunction with the rest of the band is just awesome.
The Shorest Straw chugs right along with a heavy groove and some cool drumming by Lars again. Good guitars here. Once the song kicks into full speed it's uptempo and blistering. Another really good song.
Harvester of Sorrow....cool picked string melody. Then the distorted guitars pick up the tune and then it kicks into the main riff. The drums remind me of an idling funny car. Slow paced and heavy as fuck.
The Frayed Ends of Sanity...the Wizard of Oz flying monkey chant makes this song so incredibly awesome. Saw them play the beginning of this live back in 89. They only did it for about a minute but it was great. Lots of stop/starts in the beginning of this one. Once the vocals begin the song just slays. Every song on this album just has so many parts. Each one works with and compliments the next. The Black Album was the only logical place to go after this. There was no way to top the songwriting on this, in regards to epicness. Slayer followed Reign in Blood with South of Heaven. Pantera just kept trying to get more kick ass with each release and the songwriting started to suffer.
To Live is to Die...A Monumental Instrumental. Slow, heavy, and sludgy. Cool leads in the middle. The dirge just keeps plodding on. It could send you into a trance. A great mellow interlude in the middle. The harmonic guitar sounds, especially when the volume is turned up and down on one of the guitars remind me again of an orchestra...I actuallly thought there were strings on this song until I really listened. I believe they get these sounds out of their guitars. Cool soft acoustical ending that leads right into....
Dyer's Eve. Another Hetfield therapy session. This song starts so blazingly, blistering fast there was nowhere else for Metallica to go after this but slower. This is as fast as it gets kiddies. This is the pure unadulterated sound of pure rage and hatred. It's directed toward parents but it's a total critique of the harsh world that awaits children as they grow, mature and lose innocence The world is an uncaring and brutal place. This song poses a fairly heavy question....as a parent do you shelter your child from the harsh, brutal reality of the world as much as you can in order to protect innocence or do you purposely expose them to it and become the destroyer of the innocence in order to protect against such disillusionment and confusion? The song blazes from start to finish. This is in contention for my all time favorite Metallica song. So fast, so heavy, so blazing, so angry.
Again, the production and mix is questionable on this album. The sound on everything after Kill Em All is not very good. For a great fucking band, they sure as shit couldn't get the sound right after Kill Em until the Black Album...their critical and commercial breakthrough. But is it their best?
Grade: A+
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Master of Puppets
Master of Puppets is the album that put Metallica into the consciousness of every metal head in America back in 1986-87. Only those deepest in the scene heard Kill Em All or Ride the Lightning BEFORE Puppets. Many argue that Puppets is the apex of Metallica's songwriting and playing. There's another contingent that says And Justice For All was the same.
The album starts off with Spanish influenced acoustic intro that leads right into the bombast of Battery. Excellent songwriting on this tune...the acoustic subtlety goes into some orchestral electric "giganticness" and then the thrash breaks loose at breakneck speed. Lyrically, I've always thought this song to be in the same vein as Hit the Lights and Whiplash, about Metallica's live show with battery referring to the insanity found out in the mosh pits of metal shows in small clubs in those days. Battery also refers to the percussion section of an orchestra. Is the song about Metallica's full force audio assault? Or does a closer look could throw this into the realm of James's revealing of his personal demons. The strongest evidence that suggests this might be the case is "cannot kill the family, battery is found in me." It seems that James could be singing about things that would pop up again and again on later albums, throwing blame at his parent for his anger, hostility, anxiety, and depression. But that's to be explored at a later time.
Master of Puppets...perhaps the best Metallica song of all time. Lars's kick drum paired with Cliff's bass punctuate the heavy stops and make this song a monster. The song is so well-crafted, all parts vital. About 3 minutes and 30 seconds in the song takes a break and becomes very soft and beautiful. There are some twin guitar harmonic leads that are quite elegant. This mellow interlude lasts about a minute and a half before the song kicks back into gear with the power chords, the pounding percussion, and the end of each measure is punctuated with the bass and kick drum. For anyone just getting into Metallica or trying to introduce another to the world of Metallica, this song is the place to start.
The Thing that Should Not Be- this song weighs seven tons. It's heavy. Much slower than most of the thrash Metallica creates, Thing stands out so much because of its pace. But it works so well on this album because it leads perfectly into the down tempo Sanitarium. Another metaphorical song about Hetfield's mental anguish.
Sanitarium...more of Het's psychosis. Nice mellow opening. Sounds so soft and delicate after Thing. As the song builds a dreamy sound scape lifts the listener through clouds of placidity. I think Limp Bizkit once covered this for VH1 Rock Honors....and they did one hell of a job. Quite surprising. This is just another excellent song. It slows the album down and gives it some depth and space to breath. After Battery and Puppets, Thing slows the pace down and this widens the fissure from the thrash assault, well, until about the 4 minute mark. That's when the song kicks back into the thrash and blazes.
Disposable Heroes is so lighting fast and heavy there isn't much to say that hasn't been said before. The first riff after the intro sounds like and idling hot rod. The song blazes and grooves at the same time. Another interesting song lyrically. On the surface it seems to be a simple criticism of a nation's willingness to sacrifice its young in war. If you look at it metaphorically, it could be another song where James disguises his personal war with the world. The evidence for that lies in the line "life planned out before my birth nothing could i say." Again, this could be address further later but i only do so here as I have a theory that this is perhaps Metallica's most fully developed concept album. Lighting was about death, Puppets is about James. I'll get to that in a second.
I love the fact that Leper Messiah opens with someone in the band counting off the start of the song without it being edited out. This song grooves as it opens and reminds me a bit of Frayed Ends off Justice. Trying doing the Wizard of Oz singing monkey thing (oh wee oh, wee oh oh) over it here and it works. This is another slower tempo million ton song. So heavy, yet it still manages to groove.
Orion is a monster. How does it compare with Ktulu and To Live is to Die? Subject for another time. But if you needed some background music in your movie during a pre-battle scene, or a crime movie where the thieves are prepping for the big heist, or a football movie where the team is getting ready to take the field, this is your song.
Damage Inc.....opens with some simple harmonic sounds. Then breaks into some really ugly distorted guitar. This is the sound of anger. This is the sound of hate. This is full throttle. Another great song. The fact they close the album out on such a brutal note ties this album directly with Justice. Dyer's Eve might be the only song that competes with this for full and total fury.
Overall, this might just be Metallica's best album. Not necessarily my favorite, that's to be decided when I look at the others in depth. I have a tendency to feel nostalgic toward Justice just because so much of my formative development was spent with that playing in a car tape deck, a boom box at a party or in my teenage bedroom thorough my stereo system. The mixing and production is less "tinny" than RTL but still muddier than Kill Em. Although I like the sound of Kill Em All better because you can hear each player individually at all times, the sound on Master suits it well, better than RTL becasue that sound takes away from a killer album. The fury and aggression of Puppets comes across in its sound. RTL loses some power because it sounds weak. Pupppets sounds like it wants to kill your family.
As a concept album, Puppets is far more realized than RTL. Follow the "story." Battery starts out expressing the rage and fury of the protagonist. He's got to unload, unleash, and rage. Puppets, clearly a song about drug addiction, could also be looked at as a song about anxiety and depression as the "master." Let's just keep it as a drug abuse song for simplicity's sake. The protagonist becomes a victim to addiction because there is no other way to channel his aggression, anger and hatred. His escape becomes its own nightmare. The Thing That Should Not Be is about the madness lurking under the surface of the protagonist. Very similar to Trapped Under Ice, this "thing" is just waiting to break out and escape. Sanitarium is next and the protagonist is still struggling with managing to live in the world at large while keeping the crazy inside under wraps. Disposable heroes displays the war between the protagonist and the world he must be a part of. Leper Messiah shows that like the drug addiction in Master, there is no salvation in religion. Its false, phony, and fake claims of compassion and guidance are just ploys to fill financial coffers. Orion is a wordless...make of it what you will. If this were a movie the director could flash back to definitive scenes of character development from earlier in the film then show him about to break out and break free from his demons by accepting them and then slide into Damage Inc. Here the protagonist accepts that he will always be damaged and fucked and they only way he can cope is through aggressive behavior. Like Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, there is no escape, there is no relief, there is only yourself and nothing lasts.
Grade: A+
The album starts off with Spanish influenced acoustic intro that leads right into the bombast of Battery. Excellent songwriting on this tune...the acoustic subtlety goes into some orchestral electric "giganticness" and then the thrash breaks loose at breakneck speed. Lyrically, I've always thought this song to be in the same vein as Hit the Lights and Whiplash, about Metallica's live show with battery referring to the insanity found out in the mosh pits of metal shows in small clubs in those days. Battery also refers to the percussion section of an orchestra. Is the song about Metallica's full force audio assault? Or does a closer look could throw this into the realm of James's revealing of his personal demons. The strongest evidence that suggests this might be the case is "cannot kill the family, battery is found in me." It seems that James could be singing about things that would pop up again and again on later albums, throwing blame at his parent for his anger, hostility, anxiety, and depression. But that's to be explored at a later time.
Master of Puppets...perhaps the best Metallica song of all time. Lars's kick drum paired with Cliff's bass punctuate the heavy stops and make this song a monster. The song is so well-crafted, all parts vital. About 3 minutes and 30 seconds in the song takes a break and becomes very soft and beautiful. There are some twin guitar harmonic leads that are quite elegant. This mellow interlude lasts about a minute and a half before the song kicks back into gear with the power chords, the pounding percussion, and the end of each measure is punctuated with the bass and kick drum. For anyone just getting into Metallica or trying to introduce another to the world of Metallica, this song is the place to start.
The Thing that Should Not Be- this song weighs seven tons. It's heavy. Much slower than most of the thrash Metallica creates, Thing stands out so much because of its pace. But it works so well on this album because it leads perfectly into the down tempo Sanitarium. Another metaphorical song about Hetfield's mental anguish.
Sanitarium...more of Het's psychosis. Nice mellow opening. Sounds so soft and delicate after Thing. As the song builds a dreamy sound scape lifts the listener through clouds of placidity. I think Limp Bizkit once covered this for VH1 Rock Honors....and they did one hell of a job. Quite surprising. This is just another excellent song. It slows the album down and gives it some depth and space to breath. After Battery and Puppets, Thing slows the pace down and this widens the fissure from the thrash assault, well, until about the 4 minute mark. That's when the song kicks back into the thrash and blazes.
Disposable Heroes is so lighting fast and heavy there isn't much to say that hasn't been said before. The first riff after the intro sounds like and idling hot rod. The song blazes and grooves at the same time. Another interesting song lyrically. On the surface it seems to be a simple criticism of a nation's willingness to sacrifice its young in war. If you look at it metaphorically, it could be another song where James disguises his personal war with the world. The evidence for that lies in the line "life planned out before my birth nothing could i say." Again, this could be address further later but i only do so here as I have a theory that this is perhaps Metallica's most fully developed concept album. Lighting was about death, Puppets is about James. I'll get to that in a second.
I love the fact that Leper Messiah opens with someone in the band counting off the start of the song without it being edited out. This song grooves as it opens and reminds me a bit of Frayed Ends off Justice. Trying doing the Wizard of Oz singing monkey thing (oh wee oh, wee oh oh) over it here and it works. This is another slower tempo million ton song. So heavy, yet it still manages to groove.
Orion is a monster. How does it compare with Ktulu and To Live is to Die? Subject for another time. But if you needed some background music in your movie during a pre-battle scene, or a crime movie where the thieves are prepping for the big heist, or a football movie where the team is getting ready to take the field, this is your song.
Damage Inc.....opens with some simple harmonic sounds. Then breaks into some really ugly distorted guitar. This is the sound of anger. This is the sound of hate. This is full throttle. Another great song. The fact they close the album out on such a brutal note ties this album directly with Justice. Dyer's Eve might be the only song that competes with this for full and total fury.
Overall, this might just be Metallica's best album. Not necessarily my favorite, that's to be decided when I look at the others in depth. I have a tendency to feel nostalgic toward Justice just because so much of my formative development was spent with that playing in a car tape deck, a boom box at a party or in my teenage bedroom thorough my stereo system. The mixing and production is less "tinny" than RTL but still muddier than Kill Em. Although I like the sound of Kill Em All better because you can hear each player individually at all times, the sound on Master suits it well, better than RTL becasue that sound takes away from a killer album. The fury and aggression of Puppets comes across in its sound. RTL loses some power because it sounds weak. Pupppets sounds like it wants to kill your family.
As a concept album, Puppets is far more realized than RTL. Follow the "story." Battery starts out expressing the rage and fury of the protagonist. He's got to unload, unleash, and rage. Puppets, clearly a song about drug addiction, could also be looked at as a song about anxiety and depression as the "master." Let's just keep it as a drug abuse song for simplicity's sake. The protagonist becomes a victim to addiction because there is no other way to channel his aggression, anger and hatred. His escape becomes its own nightmare. The Thing That Should Not Be is about the madness lurking under the surface of the protagonist. Very similar to Trapped Under Ice, this "thing" is just waiting to break out and escape. Sanitarium is next and the protagonist is still struggling with managing to live in the world at large while keeping the crazy inside under wraps. Disposable heroes displays the war between the protagonist and the world he must be a part of. Leper Messiah shows that like the drug addiction in Master, there is no salvation in religion. Its false, phony, and fake claims of compassion and guidance are just ploys to fill financial coffers. Orion is a wordless...make of it what you will. If this were a movie the director could flash back to definitive scenes of character development from earlier in the film then show him about to break out and break free from his demons by accepting them and then slide into Damage Inc. Here the protagonist accepts that he will always be damaged and fucked and they only way he can cope is through aggressive behavior. Like Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, there is no escape, there is no relief, there is only yourself and nothing lasts.
Grade: A+
Friday, February 1, 2013
Ride the Lightning
Having just wrapped up my analysis of Kill Em All (see previous posts)...here's my live take on Ride the Lightning. I'm typing as I listen and am fueled by dual propellants of Sam Adams Boston Lager and Corona Extra. Extra what? Piss taste. Thanks to the lime farmer for helping mask the shitty taste of Corona.
Ride the Lighting is a concept album, not in the sense that it tells a story but in the sense that every song deals with death. Kill Em All altered between tales of being a metal head and fantasy. Nothing super creative...Metallica would continue with the concept albums for a while after this(master and justice).
Fight Fire With Fire....Opens as unexpectedly as Kill Em All...a little classical ditty in the vein of Randy Rhodes's Dee. Then all hell breaks loose and the fastest thrash blast comes your way. Excruciatingly fast and pummelling. Vocal pattern too elementary. But it would be almost impossible to play this rhythm and sing any sort of juxtapostioned lyric. IMPOSSIBLE. The music is brutal. Nice little breakdown at about 230 and then all hell breaks loose again. Kirk's soloing is solid. Lars just blasts away at the snare. Some nice double bass and some good syncopation between the bass and crash cymbal.
Ride the Lightning...song starts off with sounds that remind the listener of electric jolts. Chugging riff...nothing extraordinary. James's vocals are still screechy like on Kill Em but there are bouts of melodic "singing". Because the rhythm pattern in the last song was so intense, the vocal pattern suffered. This song is the converse....the playing isn't as tough and the vocals are stronger. Lars has some cool drumming on this one. Interesting fills. Some good off time stuff. His signature interplay between the kick drum and snare is on display.
***The production on this album is much muddier and not as clear as Kill Em All. The sound is more "metallic" but not in a good way. Kill Em All sounds much better. Everything blends together more and there's no separation of sounds even though they are better players on this....
For Whom the Bell Tolls...can't go wrong with Hemingway as source material. If you haven't seen Silver Linings Playbook, see it. There's a great Hemingway scene...and if you have read the book A Farewell to Arms, you'll get the joke immediately and get that Bradley Cooper's character isn't crazy at all...the world is fucking crazy. Take the connection deeper and you'll see the parllells between Hetfield's psyche and Hemingway's....
Epic song....just sludges on and builds momentum. Great dirge like beat. Cool riff...nice lead. Drums carry this shit at the start. This song has groove, heart, soul. This song is not thrash. This is where Metallica start to evolve. The beginning of what would come. They are developing. This song is fucking monster. Epic. Saw them live at least 4 or 5 times. This song is killer. "Take a look at the sky just before you die, it's the last time you will, will, will, will, will" ....live that echo/delay is so good. They extend the pause in the instrumentation....the pause is more powerful than the sound.
Fade to Black...The first glimpse at the demons haunting James. True artists share their suffering. Hetfield is just starting here....there's a psychology thesis waiting to be written on the James Hetfield depression/anxiety/bipolar express. Nice ballad arrangements...acoustic guitars and bouncy sentimental rhythms. I can hear the doubters who were Kill Em All worshippers saying how they sold out..."Metallica's gay...a bunch of fags. Fuck those douchebags." Oh, whoops, there's the chorus. It's thrash. Wait,back to the verse...what the hell is happening???? Listen to the lyrics, Hetfield is bleeding on the page....this continues so much in the future. Will try to throw something up in the future about this. The last 1/2 of this song just builds and blasts. Good Judas Priest like harmonics....good leads...nice double bass by Lars. Is Cliff on this album? All guitar and bass drum.....So much mid range. Whoever mixed this should have been (insert really bad thing here).
Trapped Under Ice...out of control thrash. Harsh vocals. Another great expose' of James's psychosis. Metaphorical depiction of a troubled soul.
"I don't know how to live trough this hell
Woken up, I'm still locked in this shell
Frozen soul, frozen down to the core
Break the ice, I can't take anymore
Freezing
Can't move at all
Screaming
Can't hear my call
I am dying to live
Cry out
I'm trapped under ice
Crystallized, as I lay here and rest
Eyes of glass stare directly at death
From deep sleep I have broken away
No one knows, no one hears what I say
Without going into it too much....it's about a guy who can't identify with anyone. No one knows him. He feels nothing....he's 'frozen." He just wants to break free but doesn't know how...he's trapped....James would go into this territory again and again lyrically. Fade to Black broke the ice of his emotional crises on display...it continues with Escape. He just defies society...he wants to escape. He's telling them "fuck you. All I need is me." I've heard James say this is his least favorite song. It's sort of "poppy" with the hooks and all....at least "poppy" for Metallica. About 230 in the song gets so heavy...sludge metal rules for about 10 seconds and that makes this song worthy of listening. But the lyric "Life's for my own to live my own way" is fairly elementary. It could've been said more eloquently...weak lyric.
Creeping Death....pummelling start. Drums, chugging guitars....dancing rhythm....good accentuation and emphasis of the end of each measure with cymbal crashes. This song crushes. Good structure. Reminds me of The Four Horsemen in the fine tuning of the song craft...no filler here boys and girls. Everything is vital and necessary. So let it be written ....so let it be done. Another song live that just kills. When Hetfield gets tens of thousands (or at the two Woodstock anniversary concerts hundreds of thousands) chanting "die, die, die, die, die" you'll immediately understand the dynamics of group identification. you'll understand mob mentality. you'll understand Nazi Germany. the power of numbers is a magnificent creature and to behold it in person is immensely shuddering.
Album ends with The Call of Ktulu...hey, Cliff is on this album after all. He gets some squeals and screeches out of that Rickenbacker. Such a monumental monster of a song. Great composition. Foreshadows the classical influence on Justice. It's sweeping. Bach or Beethoven would've written this had they been alive in the 1980's.
Feels good to be doing some writing again even though it's really trivial and meaningless....it keeps the hands and mind busy for a time and sometimes, that's all a man needs. If you don't agree, go back to Trapped Under Ice and Escape....Hetfield would agree. Grade: B+
Ride the Lighting is a concept album, not in the sense that it tells a story but in the sense that every song deals with death. Kill Em All altered between tales of being a metal head and fantasy. Nothing super creative...Metallica would continue with the concept albums for a while after this(master and justice).
Fight Fire With Fire....Opens as unexpectedly as Kill Em All...a little classical ditty in the vein of Randy Rhodes's Dee. Then all hell breaks loose and the fastest thrash blast comes your way. Excruciatingly fast and pummelling. Vocal pattern too elementary. But it would be almost impossible to play this rhythm and sing any sort of juxtapostioned lyric. IMPOSSIBLE. The music is brutal. Nice little breakdown at about 230 and then all hell breaks loose again. Kirk's soloing is solid. Lars just blasts away at the snare. Some nice double bass and some good syncopation between the bass and crash cymbal.
Ride the Lightning...song starts off with sounds that remind the listener of electric jolts. Chugging riff...nothing extraordinary. James's vocals are still screechy like on Kill Em but there are bouts of melodic "singing". Because the rhythm pattern in the last song was so intense, the vocal pattern suffered. This song is the converse....the playing isn't as tough and the vocals are stronger. Lars has some cool drumming on this one. Interesting fills. Some good off time stuff. His signature interplay between the kick drum and snare is on display.
***The production on this album is much muddier and not as clear as Kill Em All. The sound is more "metallic" but not in a good way. Kill Em All sounds much better. Everything blends together more and there's no separation of sounds even though they are better players on this....
For Whom the Bell Tolls...can't go wrong with Hemingway as source material. If you haven't seen Silver Linings Playbook, see it. There's a great Hemingway scene...and if you have read the book A Farewell to Arms, you'll get the joke immediately and get that Bradley Cooper's character isn't crazy at all...the world is fucking crazy. Take the connection deeper and you'll see the parllells between Hetfield's psyche and Hemingway's....
Epic song....just sludges on and builds momentum. Great dirge like beat. Cool riff...nice lead. Drums carry this shit at the start. This song has groove, heart, soul. This song is not thrash. This is where Metallica start to evolve. The beginning of what would come. They are developing. This song is fucking monster. Epic. Saw them live at least 4 or 5 times. This song is killer. "Take a look at the sky just before you die, it's the last time you will, will, will, will, will" ....live that echo/delay is so good. They extend the pause in the instrumentation....the pause is more powerful than the sound.
Fade to Black...The first glimpse at the demons haunting James. True artists share their suffering. Hetfield is just starting here....there's a psychology thesis waiting to be written on the James Hetfield depression/anxiety/bipolar express. Nice ballad arrangements...acoustic guitars and bouncy sentimental rhythms. I can hear the doubters who were Kill Em All worshippers saying how they sold out..."Metallica's gay...a bunch of fags. Fuck those douchebags." Oh, whoops, there's the chorus. It's thrash. Wait,back to the verse...what the hell is happening???? Listen to the lyrics, Hetfield is bleeding on the page....this continues so much in the future. Will try to throw something up in the future about this. The last 1/2 of this song just builds and blasts. Good Judas Priest like harmonics....good leads...nice double bass by Lars. Is Cliff on this album? All guitar and bass drum.....So much mid range. Whoever mixed this should have been (insert really bad thing here).
Trapped Under Ice...out of control thrash. Harsh vocals. Another great expose' of James's psychosis. Metaphorical depiction of a troubled soul.
"I don't know how to live trough this hell
Woken up, I'm still locked in this shell
Frozen soul, frozen down to the core
Break the ice, I can't take anymore
Freezing
Can't move at all
Screaming
Can't hear my call
I am dying to live
Cry out
I'm trapped under ice
Crystallized, as I lay here and rest
Eyes of glass stare directly at death
From deep sleep I have broken away
No one knows, no one hears what I say
Without going into it too much....it's about a guy who can't identify with anyone. No one knows him. He feels nothing....he's 'frozen." He just wants to break free but doesn't know how...he's trapped....James would go into this territory again and again lyrically. Fade to Black broke the ice of his emotional crises on display...it continues with Escape. He just defies society...he wants to escape. He's telling them "fuck you. All I need is me." I've heard James say this is his least favorite song. It's sort of "poppy" with the hooks and all....at least "poppy" for Metallica. About 230 in the song gets so heavy...sludge metal rules for about 10 seconds and that makes this song worthy of listening. But the lyric "Life's for my own to live my own way" is fairly elementary. It could've been said more eloquently...weak lyric.
Creeping Death....pummelling start. Drums, chugging guitars....dancing rhythm....good accentuation and emphasis of the end of each measure with cymbal crashes. This song crushes. Good structure. Reminds me of The Four Horsemen in the fine tuning of the song craft...no filler here boys and girls. Everything is vital and necessary. So let it be written ....so let it be done. Another song live that just kills. When Hetfield gets tens of thousands (or at the two Woodstock anniversary concerts hundreds of thousands) chanting "die, die, die, die, die" you'll immediately understand the dynamics of group identification. you'll understand mob mentality. you'll understand Nazi Germany. the power of numbers is a magnificent creature and to behold it in person is immensely shuddering.
Album ends with The Call of Ktulu...hey, Cliff is on this album after all. He gets some squeals and screeches out of that Rickenbacker. Such a monumental monster of a song. Great composition. Foreshadows the classical influence on Justice. It's sweeping. Bach or Beethoven would've written this had they been alive in the 1980's.
Feels good to be doing some writing again even though it's really trivial and meaningless....it keeps the hands and mind busy for a time and sometimes, that's all a man needs. If you don't agree, go back to Trapped Under Ice and Escape....Hetfield would agree. Grade: B+
Kill Em All
Following up on yesterday's post about Metallica....I've been listening to nothing but Metallica for about 5 straight days. Each album, mostly in chronological order, in its entirety. I made some general, sweeping, hasty observations yesterday. Now the experiment continues. Last night I listened to Kill Em All closely....and here's what I think about this landmark album 30 years after its release. Yes, that's right. 30 fucking years. I'm old. Metallica is old. Kill Em All is old. And it sounds fucking fresh.
Can't believe this was released in 1983. If the masses had been exposed to this in 1983, the world would've exploded. Fortunately, the world at large wouldn't hear about Metallica until 86 or 87....after they opened up for Ozzy supporting Master of Puppets.
The album opens with Hit the Lights. Right from the start these guys make their mark as being different with the opening of this track. This track fades in with the band playing as if they are ending a song live...just beating their instruments rhythmically and winding down, as if to bring a song to a close. I've never heard a band open in this manner. Metallica announce themselves to the world boldly. The cacophony leads to a great screeching, guttural vocal by Hetfield. If there ever was a definitive sound of metal, the guitar sound on this album is purely that. Hammet lays down some blazing solos: metallic, fast, yet emotive. The riff is urgent and bouncy. Cliff's bass is fat, a sound so drastically absent from later releases (sorry Jason). The mixing on this album is excellent. Every instrument can be heard clearly; nothing is muddled or lost. It's hard to believe this was 1983...this album is light years ahead of the scene.
The Four Horsemen follows and is a definitive Metallica song. Between 6-7 seconds in you can hear some "fingering" on the guitar as Kirk or James readies himself to play. Shit like that gets the pro tools treatment these days. It gives the album some street feel. It's got the human element right there to hear. Great assimilation of all the players playing the same thing on the main riff after the intro: dual rhythm guitar, double bass kicks, and Cliff's bass galloping along in syncopated perfection. Hefield keeps shrieking and cracking like a pubescent schoolboy. Listen closely to Cliff's playing and he's noodling all over this song. There are some shades of Sweet Home Alabama in the bridge. Kirk's soloing sounds like two different solos overdubbed on top of one another. Really gives the track a large sound. This song is a perfect example of metal songwriting. There's not a wasted second, every part leads to the next and lends itself to it. Everything complements everything else unlike Death Magnetic where the "songs" seem to be more of a jumbled collection of riffs. Don't get me wrong, I like Death Magnetic, but the strength lies in the aggression and riffing, not the strong structures.
Motorbreath....thanks Motorhead for the influence. Thanks punk rock. This song is more punk than metal. Take out the drum fills on the toms and Lars has been playing this beat for 30 years. Great Carpe Diem song. Go out and live....kill it. Take it. Burn fast. You got one shot, do it right. Kirk's solos wordlessly continue the message of the song....burn hot and fast.
Jump in the Fire - great riff. dumb lyrics but good vocals if not a bit heavy on the back up vocals "COME ON!!! jump in the Fi-----ya!" Lots of good soloing by Kirk. Song grows dull though. It just doesn't have the cohesion of The Four Horsemen.
Anesthesia, Pulling Teeth...interesting sounds but not really a song but fun to hear with Cliff's absence from the world. He was one hell of a player. Song gets cool when Lars comes in on the drums and then it goes into Whiplash.
Whiplash----starts like Hit the Lights...a cacophony. BIG FAT GUITARS. Blistering main riffing and chugging. Good syncopation of riffing and symbol crashes. Some more good tom fills like Motorbreath, what happened Lars? This song is total metal. It was also the first song I ever sang in front of a crowd back in high school at a party. Band with no singer was playing metal songs, I figured I could yell this. I did. Don't think I was able to match James's shrieking and hoarseness. The whole band is playing so tightly together and Kirk's solos scream....St. Anger wishes they were there.
Phantom Lord---the guitar tone is so consistently steady from song to song...did they record this in one day? None of the controls must've been touched in the studio once they started recording. Another song that shows the Motorhead influence. Blistering riffing. Nice movement of chords in chorus. More bad lyrics. So glad James got in touch with his personal demons later on and left the supernatural Ronnie James Dio geek bullshit behind. Kirk's worst soloing on the album....tinny and weak. The breakdown in the middle of the song sounds like The Thing That Should Not Be from Puppets. Song has some great parts but he weakest parts weigh it down..it could've been a classic.
No Remorse....Main riff is a bit less interesting than what's come before. Not Kirk's best soloing here. About 50 seconds in, the delay echo on the single guitar sounds great. The song also has a nice bouncy groove going into the chorus, the best part of the song. After "war without an end" the song turns "funky," dare I say? Funktallica! Did i just invent something? Sort of like Dread Zeppelin...but with 100 times more funk!!!!!!
Seek and Destroy....another classic riff but possibly the most overplayed song in their catalog. I believe they've been closing the live shows out with this for over a decade...maybe longer. Time for a change James. Listen to Cliff's squealing bass....awesome stuff. Song too long. Too repetitive. It's doing the same thing over and over...maybe this is the influence of Discharge? Just nonstop repetition. Faith No More were kings of this....well, Billy Gould's bass lines were...the other band members took the songs elsewhere. It worked so well for them.
Metal Militia.....total brutal thrash. James is really grating in his singing...almost indecipherable. Song is harsh. So fast. Definitive of much music in the metal genre to follow.
Overall, this is one hell of an album. This put these guys and thrash on the map. There is so much aggression and speed in here. This is the sound of metal. There is a primal urgency in getting this out. They were young and burning bright. They were a part of something new and all of that comes across in this. It's a great listen and no matter how many times you put this one on, it doesn't grow stale. Grade: A-
Can't believe this was released in 1983. If the masses had been exposed to this in 1983, the world would've exploded. Fortunately, the world at large wouldn't hear about Metallica until 86 or 87....after they opened up for Ozzy supporting Master of Puppets.
The album opens with Hit the Lights. Right from the start these guys make their mark as being different with the opening of this track. This track fades in with the band playing as if they are ending a song live...just beating their instruments rhythmically and winding down, as if to bring a song to a close. I've never heard a band open in this manner. Metallica announce themselves to the world boldly. The cacophony leads to a great screeching, guttural vocal by Hetfield. If there ever was a definitive sound of metal, the guitar sound on this album is purely that. Hammet lays down some blazing solos: metallic, fast, yet emotive. The riff is urgent and bouncy. Cliff's bass is fat, a sound so drastically absent from later releases (sorry Jason). The mixing on this album is excellent. Every instrument can be heard clearly; nothing is muddled or lost. It's hard to believe this was 1983...this album is light years ahead of the scene.
The Four Horsemen follows and is a definitive Metallica song. Between 6-7 seconds in you can hear some "fingering" on the guitar as Kirk or James readies himself to play. Shit like that gets the pro tools treatment these days. It gives the album some street feel. It's got the human element right there to hear. Great assimilation of all the players playing the same thing on the main riff after the intro: dual rhythm guitar, double bass kicks, and Cliff's bass galloping along in syncopated perfection. Hefield keeps shrieking and cracking like a pubescent schoolboy. Listen closely to Cliff's playing and he's noodling all over this song. There are some shades of Sweet Home Alabama in the bridge. Kirk's soloing sounds like two different solos overdubbed on top of one another. Really gives the track a large sound. This song is a perfect example of metal songwriting. There's not a wasted second, every part leads to the next and lends itself to it. Everything complements everything else unlike Death Magnetic where the "songs" seem to be more of a jumbled collection of riffs. Don't get me wrong, I like Death Magnetic, but the strength lies in the aggression and riffing, not the strong structures.
Motorbreath....thanks Motorhead for the influence. Thanks punk rock. This song is more punk than metal. Take out the drum fills on the toms and Lars has been playing this beat for 30 years. Great Carpe Diem song. Go out and live....kill it. Take it. Burn fast. You got one shot, do it right. Kirk's solos wordlessly continue the message of the song....burn hot and fast.
Jump in the Fire - great riff. dumb lyrics but good vocals if not a bit heavy on the back up vocals "COME ON!!! jump in the Fi-----ya!" Lots of good soloing by Kirk. Song grows dull though. It just doesn't have the cohesion of The Four Horsemen.
Anesthesia, Pulling Teeth...interesting sounds but not really a song but fun to hear with Cliff's absence from the world. He was one hell of a player. Song gets cool when Lars comes in on the drums and then it goes into Whiplash.
Whiplash----starts like Hit the Lights...a cacophony. BIG FAT GUITARS. Blistering main riffing and chugging. Good syncopation of riffing and symbol crashes. Some more good tom fills like Motorbreath, what happened Lars? This song is total metal. It was also the first song I ever sang in front of a crowd back in high school at a party. Band with no singer was playing metal songs, I figured I could yell this. I did. Don't think I was able to match James's shrieking and hoarseness. The whole band is playing so tightly together and Kirk's solos scream....St. Anger wishes they were there.
Phantom Lord---the guitar tone is so consistently steady from song to song...did they record this in one day? None of the controls must've been touched in the studio once they started recording. Another song that shows the Motorhead influence. Blistering riffing. Nice movement of chords in chorus. More bad lyrics. So glad James got in touch with his personal demons later on and left the supernatural Ronnie James Dio geek bullshit behind. Kirk's worst soloing on the album....tinny and weak. The breakdown in the middle of the song sounds like The Thing That Should Not Be from Puppets. Song has some great parts but he weakest parts weigh it down..it could've been a classic.
No Remorse....Main riff is a bit less interesting than what's come before. Not Kirk's best soloing here. About 50 seconds in, the delay echo on the single guitar sounds great. The song also has a nice bouncy groove going into the chorus, the best part of the song. After "war without an end" the song turns "funky," dare I say? Funktallica! Did i just invent something? Sort of like Dread Zeppelin...but with 100 times more funk!!!!!!
Seek and Destroy....another classic riff but possibly the most overplayed song in their catalog. I believe they've been closing the live shows out with this for over a decade...maybe longer. Time for a change James. Listen to Cliff's squealing bass....awesome stuff. Song too long. Too repetitive. It's doing the same thing over and over...maybe this is the influence of Discharge? Just nonstop repetition. Faith No More were kings of this....well, Billy Gould's bass lines were...the other band members took the songs elsewhere. It worked so well for them.
Metal Militia.....total brutal thrash. James is really grating in his singing...almost indecipherable. Song is harsh. So fast. Definitive of much music in the metal genre to follow.
Overall, this is one hell of an album. This put these guys and thrash on the map. There is so much aggression and speed in here. This is the sound of metal. There is a primal urgency in getting this out. They were young and burning bright. They were a part of something new and all of that comes across in this. It's a great listen and no matter how many times you put this one on, it doesn't grow stale. Grade: A-
Thursday, January 31, 2013
this was something from a few years ago just laying around in drafts...not sure why i forgot to post it.
I currently have 14145 songs in my itunes folder. I randomly update my ipod every few days....the last 5 songs I’ve listened to while playing on random:
5. The Beatles...A Hard Day’s Night: That opening chord, F or G, lets you know right from the start what it is. Great vocal by Lennon. My 3 year old son has been singing this song with me at night time because I don;t know that many kids songs. So I started singing this somewhere around Thanksgiving 07 at bed time and he picked the entire thing up within a week or so. Now, when it comes on over the stereo, he sings along. The song has taken on a new meaning for me with that. Everytime I hear it without him, I think of him.10/10
5. The Beatles...A Hard Day’s Night: That opening chord, F or G, lets you know right from the start what it is. Great vocal by Lennon. My 3 year old son has been singing this song with me at night time because I don;t know that many kids songs. So I started singing this somewhere around Thanksgiving 07 at bed time and he picked the entire thing up within a week or so. Now, when it comes on over the stereo, he sings along. The song has taken on a new meaning for me with that. Everytime I hear it without him, I think of him.10/10
4. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers...Breakdown. Good ol’ Tom played the Superbowl this year. Tom kicks ass. He knows how to write a hit. This is one in a string of a couple of dozen
great tracks by these guys. 
Great guitar, keyboards, and back up vocal harmonies on this one. When he opened up the Superbowl show with American Girl, I was stoked. That’s my favorite all time Tom Petty song, no matter how much my friends Becky and Jeremy make fun of me for being old and even knowing that song. They can bite my ass! 8/10 
3.
Pearl Jam...Once: The song kicks off their debut, Ten. Nice mellow Phil Collins "In the Air Tonight" thing going on to start it. Then the distorted guitar kicks in, drums and bass follow and the rest of the song kicks ass from there. I got lucky enough to see these guy open up for the Chili Peppers back in 91 or 92. It was in the fall, not long after Ten made its debut. I didn;t have it yet, nor did anyone I knew. I did have the Mother Love Bone disc and was a bit ambivalent about it. These guys played for about 35-40 minutes with intensity. Everything they had was being poured out on the stage and it showed. Looking back, I was there to see the Peppers, but these guys made much more of an impression that night. Eddie did his signature (at that time) stage dive that night into a crowd of about 15,000 and surfed out to the soundboard and back. The chili peppers show is on youtube now (check out this link) http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8veW91dHViZS5jb20vcmVzdWx0c3NlYXJjaF9xdWVyeT1jaGlsaStwZXBwZXJzK3Ryb3krbnkmYW1wO3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPSBhbmQ= you get a sense that John isn;t giving a fuck about playing and things are already starting to unravel. The show was pretty damn good, but in hindsight, Pearl Jam was the band to be seen and I bought Ten the following day. 10/10 
2. Rancid...Liecester Square: Now here’s a band I haven;’t seen and desperately want to. This is a great song to listen to with headphones to get the brilliance of it. It starts out with some really strong vocals by Lars and a single guitar. Drums, bass, guitar 2 and some great work on the toggle switch (ie. the headphones)...nice chorus, handclaps...the arrangement of this song is absolute genius. Matt Freeman’s bass is a bit slower than usual and he still manages to run up and down the neck...There’s a bare simplicity to the song, but just enough there to really shine. One of their best! 10/10
1. Pink Floyd...An Colour You Like: This is off Dark Side of the Moon. Great spacey bug out music. Song is carried nicely along by the bassline and kick drum, snare. Alien Keyboards...About a minute in the guitar starts up a little conversation...I wonder if this is where Steve Vai got the idea to try and make his guitar talk in the 80s...the sound patterns of the guitars sound exactly like conversation. Again, this is one of those songs I’ve heard a million times and until I really listened, I never noticed the sound signatures laid down on the track. 7/10
** this is definitely the best 5 songs I;ve had grouped together since I;ve started this jackass experiment.
2. Rancid...Liecester Square: Now here’s a band I haven;’t seen and desperately want to. This is a great song to listen to with headphones to get the brilliance of it. It starts out with some really strong vocals by Lars and a single guitar. Drums, bass, guitar 2 and some great work on the toggle switch (ie. the headphones)...nice chorus, handclaps...the arrangement of this song is absolute genius. Matt Freeman’s bass is a bit slower than usual and he still manages to run up and down the neck...There’s a bare simplicity to the song, but just enough there to really shine. One of their best! 10/10
1. Pink Floyd...An Colour You Like: This is off Dark Side of the Moon. Great spacey bug out music. Song is carried nicely along by the bassline and kick drum, snare. Alien Keyboards...About a minute in the guitar starts up a little conversation...I wonder if this is where Steve Vai got the idea to try and make his guitar talk in the 80s...the sound patterns of the guitars sound exactly like conversation. Again, this is one of those songs I’ve heard a million times and until I really listened, I never noticed the sound signatures laid down on the track. 7/10
** this is definitely the best 5 songs I;ve had grouped together since I;ve started this jackass experiment.
A Spontaneous List of Metallica Observations
Been listening to Metallica consistently for the past 3 days. All albums in their entirety. Still contemplating many things but a few observations for now...
1. The music is angrier and more aggressive from 2004 on.
2. Load, when listened to after every preceding album is pretty weird.
3. Lars's drumming in the early days sounds better. He uses his toms much more. His more recent drumming really focuses on interplay between the kick drum and snare. He does some pretty cool stuff with that but the lack of "flair" (ie killer metal fills) puts all the focus on the snare...which at times sounds bad.
4. Lars is a pretty "groovy" drummer. Listen to his kick drum. He'd be much better suited playing in a band like clutch.
5. Old Metallica songs are songs. The new stuff is a collection of riffs thrown together.
6. Reload is better thAn load
7.the black album is a great fucking album.
8. And justice for all contains the most expertly constructed strong structures.
9. Lars 's kick drum sound on justice through reload is booming. Listen to it on a good system with a subwoofer.
10. Lars gets so much shit for being a bad drummer...is the reason because he's merely a good drummer surrounded by far superior players?
1. The music is angrier and more aggressive from 2004 on.
2. Load, when listened to after every preceding album is pretty weird.
3. Lars's drumming in the early days sounds better. He uses his toms much more. His more recent drumming really focuses on interplay between the kick drum and snare. He does some pretty cool stuff with that but the lack of "flair" (ie killer metal fills) puts all the focus on the snare...which at times sounds bad.
4. Lars is a pretty "groovy" drummer. Listen to his kick drum. He'd be much better suited playing in a band like clutch.
5. Old Metallica songs are songs. The new stuff is a collection of riffs thrown together.
6. Reload is better thAn load
7.the black album is a great fucking album.
8. And justice for all contains the most expertly constructed strong structures.
9. Lars 's kick drum sound on justice through reload is booming. Listen to it on a good system with a subwoofer.
10. Lars gets so much shit for being a bad drummer...is the reason because he's merely a good drummer surrounded by far superior players?
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