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
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