This Week I've Been Mostly Listening To...Metallica!
A blast from the past. I've been going back to my roots. Yeah!I was a little bored with 21st century music, so I thought I'd listen to a bit of '8os thrash metal. ...And Justice For All gets slated by a lot of people, but I think it's arguably their best album. Now don't get me wrong, Master of Puppets made my jaw drop the first time I heard it, but due to my contrary nature, I prefer ...And Justice.... Whichever one may think is better, they certainly went downhill after this.
The songs are much more complex than on previous albums and the lyrics tackle social and political issues - this generally wasn't the done thing in metal back in 1988. The intro to the opener 'Blackened' is one of the best in my 'umble opinon. In fact, I listened to it over and over today. Every track's a winner, but the brilliant 'One' and 'Harvester of Sorrow' really stand out. And as for 'Dyers Eve'. What a way to end an album.
The album's production has often been criticised. It's certainly disappointing that the then new bass player Jason Newstand can't be heard over the guitars and drums. However, I quite the banging-on-a-biscuit-tin sound of the snare drum.
I have the album on tape somewhere - I'm showing my age. However, I needed it on CD to copy onto my MP3 player. So, Lars, if you're reading this, I'm killing music, you cunt.
posted by Kealo at 22:04
6 Comments:
Ah, Metallica. They were my first gig ever, don't you know. Poor old Jason Newsted never quite seemed to get comfortable in the band. They seemed to treat him like shit.
I love this album - I think it has some of the best guitar solos on any Metallica album (up to when I gave up on them circa Reload). But I can see why people don't rate it - my grá for it is pretty subjective. I got into it because I was a fan, and love it now partly from familiarity and nostalgia. I concur on 'Harvester' and 'One'.
Yeah, I agree that the appeal is partly due to familiarity and nostalgia. It reminds me of my teenage years. Ah, halycon days!
When did you see them? I saw them at The Point in 1992. I enjoyed it, as it was only my second gig, but I don't like it as a venue. It's too big.
Wish I'd seen them at the RDS this year. I heard it was excellent.
I saw them in The Point too, in 1996. They had just released Load, and they were getting a lot of criticism from moving away from their older style. I think they might have been a bit defensive about this, because they played a lot of songs from Ride the Lightning and Kill 'Em All. I think they were trying to prove they were still hard.
Their last album St. Anger came in for a lot of criticism. I don't know for certain, as I've only heard the title track, which I thought was good.
I heard that they played the entire Master of Puppets album at the RDS gig. Although if I went to see them again I wouldn't be adverse to them doing that, it proves that they should have broken up years ago and are nothing more than a nostalgia act like Iron Maiden. They've no doubt realised this and thought, "ah, fuck it! Let's make money out of playing twenty year old songs that our fans want to hear instead of anything new we could probably come up with!"
For those of you with tellyboxes, Some Kind of Monster is on More4 on Wednesday at 9pm.
I have heard that Some Kind Of Monster is the funniest film ever made.
I haven't seen it yet, but I believe it's Tapesque. Their egos are unbelievably huge and Lars Ulrich proves once and for all that he is a cock extraordinaire.
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