METALLICA: ...And Justice For All

Produced by Metallica with Fleming Rasmussen

Released: 1988

This was always going to be a problematic album for Metallica. Their previous effort Master of Puppets was a triumph of such magnitude that twenty years later it is still considered one of the best metal albums ever made. Then almost immediately afterwards came the unbridled tragedy of the death of Cliff Burton, a disaster from which the band has never fully recovered. In that light, ...And Justice for All was going to be a difficult album. Difficult and, ultimately, flawed. Despite this, Metallica's fourth album remains a classic and a firm fan favourite because in the end the band saves it with perhaps its best songwriting. It is hardly surprising that lyrically, Justice is Metallica's darkest album and James Hetfield wields words with an eloquent mastery here that he had never achieved before and hasn't quite shown since.

For its time, ...And Justice for All was a truly epic release. With a mere nine tracks, it nevertheless ran for more than 65 minutes, longer than Slayer's Reign in Blood and South of Heaven put together, and came audaciously presented as a double album in a gatefold sleeve. As impressive as this looked however, the initial prospects for this gigantic record didn't look good. At almost ten minutes apiece, both the title track and the Burton tribute 'To Live is To Die' were overly long and the latter was simply just boring. It was clear that Metallica was trying to recapture the magic of Master's 'Orion' as a dedication to their fallen bandmate, but without him it just becomes a turgid and overwrought snoozefest.

Worse by far however was Justice's bizarre and annoying production. Pushing the snare to the fore of the sound and virtually abolishing the bass altogether could well have sunk the whole album for good. Various reasons have surfaced for this, from a claim that Hetfield and Ulrich dropped the bass as some kind of ridiculous "prank" on newcomer Jason Newsted to another story that James wanted the bass low on purpose to give it a piano-like effect. Whatever the explanation, ...And Justice for All has the worst production of any Metallica album except St. Anger (which was also apparently done on purpose).

Justice's redemption lies in its songs. The opening broadside of 'Blackened', the anger of 'Eye of the Beholder' and the darkness of 'Harvester of Sorrow' lift ...And Justice for All above its imperfections. It is the meticulous and brilliant 'One', however, that looms over them all as the indisputable centerpiece, perhaps the zenith of Metallica's creative height, a song so powerful that almost two decades later it remains one of the greatest metal songs ever written. Even with such a disastrous sound, ...And Justice for All is as close to the perfection of Master of Puppets that Metallica would ever come again and yet one feels that without the shadow of Burton's death still haunting them, they could well have surpassed it.

1. Blackened


2. ...and Justice For All


3. Eye of the Beholder


4. One


5. The Shortest Straw


6. Harvester of Sorrow


7. The Frayed Ends of Sanity


8. To Live is to Die


9. Dyer's Eve

Rating: 83%