Produced by Bob Rock
Released: 1991
While their older fans would repeatedly yell "sell out" at the band for this (something they'd been accused of by some since Ride the Lightning), there can be little doubt that this is the album Metallica simply had to make. By the end of the 80s they were far too big to remain underground, but their old formulas weren't accessible enough for wider acceptance. They were a band at the crossroads, and they could either stay the same and remain big fish in a small pond to slowly dwindle and fade, or take the chance on a change in the hope that they could at last attain the real success to which they'd always aspired. With Untitled, they did the latter, and in the process went from being the biggest metal band in the world to being one of the biggest bands of any kind, ever. Quite simply, Untitled was a monster of an album. Released at a time when virtually ever other metal band was about to feel the repercussions from either the sudden death of the ridiculous hair-metal juggernaut or the dearth of ideas in thrash and older metal styles that would see the genre all but wiped out by the Seattle rock explosion, few could have genuinely anticipated that this album would debut at the top of the album charts almost simultaneously around the world.
What Metallica did here is the same thing that Judas Priest did on Killing Machine or what Rainbow did, even more drastically, on Down to Earth. They simplified their approach, in the process cutting down the track playing time to an average of five minutes. The end result was a bunch of catchy songs that, while no longer thrash, were clearly still metal and nowhere as vapid as Metallica was to become, but ultimately Untitled is really just not that interesting. There are good songs, which I'll get to shortly, but there's also duds like "Holier Than Thou" and "The Struggle Within" that do nothing but make this album about fifteen minutes too long. Even some of the best albums start to lose their spark after 40 minutes or so, and this is no exception. Nevertheless, Untitled isn't as bad as many make it out to be and certainly doesn't suck as hard as many would suggest. I'm sure we all could have lived without "Nothing Else Matters", but there's a group of tracks in the middle of the album that really make this worthwhile, headed by the brooding "Wherever I May Roam", the only song on this album to come close to Metallica's epic past. Following that is a couple of almost-thrashers in "Don't Tread On Me" and "Through the Never" that are reminiscent of stuff from ...And Justice For All, and then, skipping the puke-worthy eighth track, there's a good old galloper in "Of Wolf and Man" followed by the near-menace of "The God That Failed". Most of the rest are neither here nor there really, although "My Friend of Misery" lets Jason Newsted out of his box for once, which is interesting in itself.
The production is immaculate; this remains to date Metallica's best sounding album, but compared to most of the rest of their catalogue up to this point lifting the production standard wasn't really going to take much. Vocal-wise, Hetfield doesn't actually sound too bad but if there's one thing that's truly overdone here it's Kirk Hammett's use of the wah-wah pedal. Honestly, the guy hammers it like he's the first person to have ever used one and in the end all it really does is emphasise how unspectacular a lead guitarist he actually is.
As a watershed moment for heavy metal music, it's hard to argue with an album that sells nine million units, but as a watermark Untitled only ranks above the average.
Released: 1991
While their older fans would repeatedly yell "sell out" at the band for this (something they'd been accused of by some since Ride the Lightning), there can be little doubt that this is the album Metallica simply had to make. By the end of the 80s they were far too big to remain underground, but their old formulas weren't accessible enough for wider acceptance. They were a band at the crossroads, and they could either stay the same and remain big fish in a small pond to slowly dwindle and fade, or take the chance on a change in the hope that they could at last attain the real success to which they'd always aspired. With Untitled, they did the latter, and in the process went from being the biggest metal band in the world to being one of the biggest bands of any kind, ever. Quite simply, Untitled was a monster of an album. Released at a time when virtually ever other metal band was about to feel the repercussions from either the sudden death of the ridiculous hair-metal juggernaut or the dearth of ideas in thrash and older metal styles that would see the genre all but wiped out by the Seattle rock explosion, few could have genuinely anticipated that this album would debut at the top of the album charts almost simultaneously around the world.
What Metallica did here is the same thing that Judas Priest did on Killing Machine or what Rainbow did, even more drastically, on Down to Earth. They simplified their approach, in the process cutting down the track playing time to an average of five minutes. The end result was a bunch of catchy songs that, while no longer thrash, were clearly still metal and nowhere as vapid as Metallica was to become, but ultimately Untitled is really just not that interesting. There are good songs, which I'll get to shortly, but there's also duds like "Holier Than Thou" and "The Struggle Within" that do nothing but make this album about fifteen minutes too long. Even some of the best albums start to lose their spark after 40 minutes or so, and this is no exception. Nevertheless, Untitled isn't as bad as many make it out to be and certainly doesn't suck as hard as many would suggest. I'm sure we all could have lived without "Nothing Else Matters", but there's a group of tracks in the middle of the album that really make this worthwhile, headed by the brooding "Wherever I May Roam", the only song on this album to come close to Metallica's epic past. Following that is a couple of almost-thrashers in "Don't Tread On Me" and "Through the Never" that are reminiscent of stuff from ...And Justice For All, and then, skipping the puke-worthy eighth track, there's a good old galloper in "Of Wolf and Man" followed by the near-menace of "The God That Failed". Most of the rest are neither here nor there really, although "My Friend of Misery" lets Jason Newsted out of his box for once, which is interesting in itself.
The production is immaculate; this remains to date Metallica's best sounding album, but compared to most of the rest of their catalogue up to this point lifting the production standard wasn't really going to take much. Vocal-wise, Hetfield doesn't actually sound too bad but if there's one thing that's truly overdone here it's Kirk Hammett's use of the wah-wah pedal. Honestly, the guy hammers it like he's the first person to have ever used one and in the end all it really does is emphasise how unspectacular a lead guitarist he actually is.
As a watershed moment for heavy metal music, it's hard to argue with an album that sells nine million units, but as a watermark Untitled only ranks above the average.
- Enter Sandman
- Sad But True
- Holier Than Thou
- The Unforgiven
- Wherever I May Roam
- Don't Tread on Me
- Through the Never
- Nothing Else Matters
- Of Wolf and Man
- The God That Failed
- My Friend of Misery
- The Struggle Within
Rating: 76%
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