Kiss - Dressed to Kill

1. Room Service -  hokey and show-tunish.  Dated.  horribly simplistic.  F

2.  Two Timer-  better but not good.  good solo.  another super simple and dull chorus.  C-

3.  Ladies in Waiting-  the album is still improving but the chorus it complete and utter garbage.  C+

4.  Getaway -  it's peppier than the other songs.  Cool interplay between the two guitars.  solid bassline.  Blazing solo.  Cowbell bonus!  B-

5.  Rock Bottom - great intro.  Everything works.  Good guitars, songwriting, and vocals.  A+

6.  C'mon and Love Me- the live version is much better.  Decent song but falls flat.  B-

7.  Anything for My Baby - another clunker.  same shit chorus again.  C-

8.  She - great sludge tune. Dark Vocals.  A

9.  Lover Her All I Can -  It grooves but it's dated and it sucks.  I can see Paul doing his flamboyant dances all over with this one.  This is the sound of his itty bitty rose tattoo.  The main riff is all right but the song sucks.  Some fun drums before the solo.  C-

10.  Rock and Roll All Night - Great anthem but again, the chorus sort of sucks.  The rest of the song moves and grooves. Cool funky bass.  Peter bangs pretty hard but song is underdeveloped and could've been better.  B

 Overall Grade :  C

KISS- Hotter Than Hell

1.  Got To Choose -  sound murky, muddled, slow, and dull.  Did KISS invent grunge in 1974?  Like a couple of tracks on the debut it sounds like it was recorded at the wrong speed.  I've heard this song on Alive! and it sounds much better.  The studio does not capture this song in a good light. If I hear "who's your baby" one more time I'm kicking a puppy.  D

2.  Parasite - this is good.  great movement to start.  uptempo and moving...can bob the head to this one.  This is guitar rock 101!  peter plays well with ace again.  having trouble hearing gene on this.   usually the drummer plays with the bassist...here it's peter and ace.  sounds like early pennywise with no bass or metallica's justice...maybe this is the metal sound they were going for when they took jason out of the mix. ...all distorted treble...B+

3.  Goin' Blind - back to the Melvins-style sludge rock.  Gene's vocals are bad.....really bad.  painful actually.  is this a ballad?  fuckin' horrible.  if i were in a band and a guy came to the table with this i'd work to get him out...this is total shit.  i wish i were goin' deaf...even Ace's leads are trite and uninspired here ..F

4.  Hotter Than Hell -  Good rockin' groove to open.  Another song with the start stop thing going on.  good vocals..raw.  Good rock n' roll lyrics about a pretty lady.  the murky production makes it land a bit flat though. And the drum fills seem a bit clunky.  Cowbell is a plus.  You can never go wrong with cowbell. Sort of a redundant song though...it goes nowhere.   B-

5.  Let Me Go Rock N' Roll -  another one for the honky tonk.   Good leads by Ace once again though.  Dull....got that Broadway cheese again...Ace's playing saves the song. C+

6.  All the Way - sounds like a bunch of guys fucking around at practice trying to come up with something.  And it's not working. Awkward riffing.  Flat vocals.  No groove, no rock.  More Broadway honky tonk....i do like the tin can sound of Ace's soloing and a little whammy or string bending is the best part of the whole song. I can picture people line dancing to this....stomping the heels of their cowboy boots on the wood floors as they turn with each verse.   D

7.  Watchin' You-  thin, sparse guitar to start.  A really heavy bass could've made this song huge.  when the second guitar hits the song takes off.  Song has multiple parts.  Most interesting thing on the album so far.  Vocals are pretty good even if a bit down in the mix and layered with multiple takes/tracks.  KISS does get a pretty good drum sound in the studio....sounds unmixed and raw...sort of a natural sound.  the guitars on this are pretty rugged.  After a close listen to this first two albums I will agree that I didn't give Ace and Peter their proper due as rock n' rollers.  A

8. Mainline -  potential in the opening riff and drums but song slips into total cheese.  bad tv show theme sound.  sucks donkey dick.  D-

9.  Comin' Home - more of a rocker than mainline or all the way but still sort of cheesy.  I expected more from an Ace composition.  Reminds me of Cheap Trick...but not as good.  Total elementary song structure.  That simple chorus breakdown is so basic and dull.  Any 15 year old with 3 months experience could fling this shit together.  D

 10.  Strange Ways- starts off dark and grimy...vocals are sleazy.  Great creeping riff...it's lurking just outside your door....waiting to get in.  Chorus is weak, especially the "bridge" before going back into the main verse.  But still a cool creeping groove to this one.  Criss even gives a few shrieking high notes in his vocal delivery.  Ace's lead solo is wicked...might be the best work he's laid down on either of the first two albums.  One of Metallica's recent criticisms is that they just write riffs and throw them together instead of composing songs.   Kiss was definitely the standard bearer for that...come up with a cool riff or two, build  song around it and then clunk a couple of weak bridges in between and have some chanting as a chorus that repeats a couple of times and boom, a song.   B-

Overall :  C

Kiss S/T Debut 1974

My friends Dave and Jamie are Kiss fans who think they deserve more respect from me.... so I'm giving them the Dilt Close Listening Treatment.

Kiss -  Kiss 1972
1.  Strutter-  Cool drum fill opening.  The bass has a cool groove that has a funk vibe to it.  The guitars are really raw and gritty...which I love.  Ace's leads are cool and every dude knows a "strutter" so that's a bonus in the lyric department.  A+

2.  Nothin' to Lose-  sounds like something that should be heard in a dirty, smoky barroom but that doesn't redeem it.  It's bloozey but sounds too much like the NY Dolls in a honky tonk.  It even has some piano and handclaps... C

3.  Firehouse -  cool riff but not strong enough to warrant an entire song built around it.  Also has a funky feel to it.  I do like the frequent stop/starts.  More interesting lead work by Ace.  Song just sort of slugs along without going anywhere.  C

4.  Cold Gin-  cool classic riff.  cool build up with bass and drums.  sounds slower than the live version and it suffers from it. needs to be picked up a bit.  Like the Death Angel version better.  Vocals are good.  In the same vein as Firehouse, cool riff but the song goes nowhere really slowly...don't get me wrong, I love classic rock but this album thus fair is fairly boring.  About three minutes in the song finally breaks into some cool guitar bits before launching back into the main riff but now that the momentum has picked up the song is finally rocking...still a little sludgey but still rocking .  The last minute redeems it.    B+

5.  Let Me Know - horrible.  Sounds like a broadway musical with terrible musicians....so far off broadway Chris Christie likes it.  Bad theatre....music.  the only thing worse than bad theatre music is church music....F

6.  Kissin' Time- disco before disco.  Total Cheese.  Feathered hair, camaros, long handled combs in the back pocket of jeans...total shit.  F

7.  Deuce -  Best song on the album thus far.  Total fucking balls out rock.  This is where KISS succeed instead of suck.  Great guitar , cool song structure....good vocals, gritty and tough.  This is rock n' roll.  Peter and Ace play their asses off together.  They might not be technical gods but the can still rock together.  A+ 

8.  Love Theme From Kiss -  What the fuck is this?  Bad Allman Brothers? It sounds like something a bunch of high dudes thought was cool when jamming out ...guess the album needed another track.  Still better than songs 5 and 6.  If i was listening on a turntable i'd turn the speed up thinking i had it on the wrong setting.  D

9.  100,000 years -  Starts off like an epic rocker.  If the bass were a bit plunkier and faster it could be the foundation of a Maiden song.  This is straight up 70s rock.  If i played in a bar band I'd cover this tune.  Stanley's vocals are the strongest on this album.  Ace's playing sounds good....guitars are raw.  Even Gene's bass sounds good.  Peter even gets a solo in.  Really like Stanley's singing when it's only the drums and him.  This really spotlights the whole band.  Again, another reminder of what they were capable of....A+

10.  Black Diamond -  cool soft little opening that leads to harsh guitar riffing....great raspy vocals by Criss...cool back up harmonies too. Fantastic guitar work....This is a guitar song.  This is a rock and roll song. Really like the contrast between the pretty harmonies and the rough edges in the music and Criss's vocals.  Tough lyrics too...this is what a NY band should sound like. That ending could've been taken off though...guess it fills time.    A+


Overall, as an album : C+/B- 

Load

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 

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

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+

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+