METALLICA: Six Feet Down Under

Released: September 20, 2010

Tonight, Metallica kicks off the second leg of their sold out Australian tour with a show in Brisbane. So what does an old, ardent fan do when one has no ticket to any of these events, other than cry into one's beer? This so-called "EP" does provide the opportunity for a trip down memory lane to the band's previous Down Under tours, so one could start there.

Labels like to have some product for a band to promote while they're on tour, but when the band is Metallica, the album's two years old and they won't allow permission for a special "tour edition", what can you do? You grab a bunch of bootlegged live tracks recorded on previous "Trans-Tasman" tours (as the booklet is at pains to point out, although no NZ shows made the cut) and turn them into the world's longest EP. Metallica are old hands at this "official bootleg" caper of course, but the results on this occasion turn out to be perhaps the rawest-sounding live takes officially released by any band ever. The first three are especially rough. "Through the Never" sounds like it was recorded on a mobile phone (which I'd almost believe if it wasn't from '93) and the recording quality of the first two is also very bad, to the degree where Metallica is almost entirely drowned out by people talking nearby a couple of times. The off-key harmonies in "...And Justice for All" are also very jarring. If this were a DVD or an actual concert, you probably wouldn't even notice. But because it's not, it's very, very obvious.

Things get better later on. Both "The Unforgiven" and the remarkable acoustic version of "Low Man's Lyric" complete with hurdy-gurdy are perfectly acceptable and it's great to hear them tear out "Fight Fire with Fire". But in all seriousness, there isn't really any reason for this to exist. Most of the tracks have probably been on YouTube now for years and despite the plea from the band in the booklet to "please don't take this too seriously", it's a bit cynical to expect people to fork out for a collection of (mostly) terribly recorded live tracks. On the plus side, this is being marketed as an EP (despite being five minutes longer than Ride the Lightning), so it only costs about $15. And that's fine, until you discover that it's only part one, meaning you're up for more cash in another month or so, when the second one comes out.

1. Eye of the Beholder
2. ...And Justice for All
3. Through the Never
4. The Unforgiven
5. Low Man's Lyric
6. Devil's Dance
7. Frantic
8. Fight Fire With Fire

Rating: 55%

METALLICA - The Club Dayz 1982-1984

by Bill Hale
ECW Press

Bill Hale is a Hawaii-based rock photographer who was lucky enough to be where plenty of us probably wish we could have been 27 years ago: hanging out on the San Francisco metal scene. He got to see, and document, the birth of one of the greatest bands metal has produced. Regardless of your opinion of Metallica, without them it's unlikely metal would have become the institution it is today, and in this book Hale captures the embryonic days of a band that has since become one of the world's biggest musical acts.

The first few pages are reminiscences from some of the others who were there: John Strednansky from Metal Rendezvous, Ron Quintana -- the zine editor from whom Lars stole the name Metallica -- and Scott Earl from a band called Culprit, whose drummer got into a fight with Dave Mustaine at Cliff Burton's second ever Metallica gig: "Mustaine basically threw my guitarist's pedals into the corner in a big ball of duct tape. I guess we weren't getting out of their way fast enough." There's nothing from any of the members of Metallica themselves, so this probably hasn't been sanctioned by the band but even if it's not, the photos are Hale's and history belongs to everyone, so no one has any reason to object.

The tales of the band's early days, in which Mustaine features very prominently, are pure gold. But the good stuff - the great stuff, the stuff that really shows us how it began and what it was like - that all really begins on page 25, with a series of shots from a gig in September 1982, when Metallica was still based in LA and opening for Bitch. There's Hetfield, wearing a bullet belt and a Venom shirt, flipping the bird. Later on, there's a bunch from Burton's first gig, headlining over Lääz Rockit and Exodus, with Cliff in his bell-bottoms, clutching his Rickenbacker, another from backstage of Hammett and Mustaine side by side. Further on, Kirk's in the band as they open for Raven and near the end, a slightly blurry candid picture of Dave and Cliff, hanging out after a Megadeth show in August, 1986, six weeks before Burton was gone forever. What strikes you the most is how fresh-faced, fun-loving and rebellious everyone is: in a backstage shot with Burton, Mustaine's wearing an inverted crucifix in his ear, elsewhere there's Lars yakking it up with Gonzo Sandoval from Armored Saint.

There isn't much "art" to Hale's shots, and almost none that can be called "posed". Even the publicity pics were of shirtless, beer-swilling reprobates with cheesy, cheeky grins and enormous pitchers of amber fluid. Just like the music the band was making back then, Bill Hale's photos are raw, urgent, immediate and vital, capturing the young Metallica's very essence. For anyone who was there, or wishes they were, this is a great book.

METALLICA: Death Magnetic

Produced by Rick Rubin

Released: 2008

After twenty years, Metallica has finally made an album that I can listen to all the way through without getting bored or skipping tracks. Almost. I'm left aghast at how anyone could have thought the directionless instrumental "Suicide and Redemption" needed to be ten minutes long, and why "The Unforgiven III" was a good idea. But at least the rest of the tracks make up for them. Like just about everyone else who came through the 80s listening to Metallica, I really wasn't getting very excited about Death Magnetic, what with its stupid title and the inconceivably awful mess that proceeded it.

There was a lot riding on this album, Metallica knew that. St. Anger may have been a huge commercial success, but five years on remains one of the most critically reviled rock albums ever and with good reason. For a band with a reputation for incredible arrogance, Metallica seems to have realised that another disaster like that would put an end to them and set about trying to revitalise. With Death Magnetic, they have come close to completely succeeding. It's not a total triumph as the two examples I've already cited show, but it's easily the best thing they've done in a long time and certainly one of the best albums of 2008.

With Rick Rubin providing a lean, dry and bare production, Metallica sounds energetic again. Lars still plods along doing just what's needed to drive the songs, and Robert Trujillo's bass is way down low in the mix so that, like his predecessor, he's virtually making up the numbers. But Hammett and Hetfield shine. Kirk Hammett is indeed this album's big surprise. He simply hasn't sounded so vital and frantic since Ride the Lightning, and maybe not even then. After being left off the last album, Hammett shows what a foolish idea that was, unleashing solos I didn't think he was capable of. Hetfield's back to his best, bringing back his spiteful bark and snarl and he's remembered how to write meaningful lyrics again, although there are some clunkers here and there. That most of the tracks are an examination of mortality is no real surprise for such a death-obsessed band either. Back too are the wrist-breaking riffs and epic, epic songs. Intros become jams then bust out into parts that sound like different songs before jamming and coming back to where they started. It's almost like the two decades since ...And Justice for All never happened.

Metallica have still to fully redeem themselves as they'll need another album at least as good or better than this to do that, but silly name and all, Death Magnetic is a return to the band's glorious past, and it doesn't even sound forced. As I've mentioned before, the "black album" may have been the album they needed to make, but this is what they should have done next.

Welcome back.

1. That was Just Your Life
2. The End of the Line
3. Broken, Beat & Scarred
4. The Day That Never Comes
5. All Nightmare Long
6. Cyanide
7. The Unforgiven III
8. The Judas Kiss
9. Suicide & Redemption
10. My Apocalypse

Rating: 92%

METALLICA: Kill 'em All

Produced by Paul Curcio

Released: 1983

Some may argue the point, and some, like Overkill, may be able to back it up, but this is where thrash truly began. Before Kill 'em All, thrash was just an embryonic, underground musical movement like thousands before it. After this release, metal would never be the same. While some may still regard this as one the best thrash albums ever, Kill 'em All became pretty dated almost immediately by its creator's very next release and those of the slew of like-minded bands that rose up in its wake. The lyrics are vacuous, the production is ordinary and some of the material is relatively weak but for its all faults, this is where the American thrash wave got its start and it is still a vital release in that regard.

"Hit the Lights" rips from the silence with all the energy and immediacy of a young and emerging band, a barely controlled eruption of rapid fire guitar solos exploding from all directions as frantic vocals spit out drivel like "when we start to rock/We never (want to) stop again!". Until St Anger, this is Hetfield's worst vocal performance as his voice wavers all over the place, but at least here he sounds excited. "Motorbreath" and "Whiplash" are further examples of early Metallica's triumph of speed over substance, the latter prefaced by "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth", Cliff Burton's wildly impressive but, from an album point of view, completely pointless bass solo. There's more to making an album than youthful exuberance, and this may well have been the end for Metallica had this been the best they could do.

Fortunately for them, Kill 'em All is redeemed by a couple of tracks that remain classics to this day. "The Four Horsemen" is the the track that dominates the first half of the album. With its main riff written by Dave Mustaine, this is an infinitely more together piece than anything else on the first half of the album and hearkens at the epic approach to songwriting that Metallica was to take after this album. The lyrics in the bridge even strive for some level of sophistication, even if they get the name of the First Horseman wrong. Similarly, the second half of Kill 'em All is overshadowed by "Seek and Destroy", the song whose immediate classic intro led countless wannabe axemen to the guitar store for lessons. Both of these songs point the way forward for Metallica, displaying some of the menace of which they were truly capable later on.

Twenty-five years down the road, Kill 'em All's NWOBHM-on-speed thrash prototype may seem decidedly lame as metal continues to get more aggressive and extreme, but make no mistake: without this, metal as we now know it may never have come to be.

1. Hit the Lights
2. The Four Horsemen
3. Motorbreath
4. Jump in the Fire
5. (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth
6. Whiplash
7. Phantom Lord
8. No Remorse
9. Seek and Destroy
10. Metal Militia

Rating: 78%

METALLICA: St. Anger

Produced by Bob Rock

Released: 2003

With the spectre of another Metallica album looming, it's time to take a backward look at their last release, the Grammy-winning and starkly polarising St. Anger. I refused to even listen to a single track from this for more than two weeks after it was released. Only when my flatmate of the time brought home a CD-R copy he’d burned at work did I give it a spin, and I have to say I was actually rather surprised. It wasn't a return to their classic sound as clearly deluded early reviewers had suggested, but I knew it wouldn't be. And it wasn't anything like the trio of albums before it, which is sort of what I thought it would be like.

Metallica's shiny veneer was stripped off on this album to the point where it seems like Bob Rock did nothing at all. This resulted in a dirtier, rawer and more aggressive sound that made Metallica heavy again. Despite all of St. Anger's faults, that this is a heavy record can't be denied. But heaviness alone is not a be all and end all, especially for a band like Metallica and St. Anger is not so much a representation of a band at war with its demons, but of one who had lost to them. So the few good things about it are far outweighed by the bad. And the bad things are atrocious.

Apart from one key element I will touch on shortly, I actually like the production on St. Anger. For a band of Metallica's stature to use such raw, earthy tones was a brave thing to do and it did bring back a little of the edginess they possessed when Dave Mustaine was still on lead guitar. That's really the only thing I did like, though. Lars' decision that Metallica no longer needed guitar solos meant that Kirk Hammett no longer had anything to do except smoke cigars and dress up as a sleazy Mexican stereotype. He's never been anything more than adequate as a lead guitarist but his playing did add an extra element, even when he was driving the wah-wah pedal into overdrive. Without that, Metallica just isn't Metallica.

Then there is James Hetfield’s horribly inconsistent vocal delivery, a truly nerve-wracking experience as he goes from half-decent to pretty good to ordinary to worse, sometimes within seconds like some kind of reverse King Diamond. Lyrically, St. Anger is totally devoid of meaning, even going so far as reworking lines from older songs in an effort at either relevance or some way to show they were remembering the past. Either way, it failed. On top of this is the horror of all horrors: Ulrich's drum sound. Instead of leaving Hammett idling in the cigar bar, it should have been Lars in there. In a move that made even people who didn't know what they were talking about scream "The snare! The snare!", Metallica came up with the most annoying drum sound imaginable. It can't even be adequately described. It's just horrible.

Metallica finally reached their nadir with this, and it seems that even they have since realised it. Whatever Death Magnetic sounds like (and it's not looking good, with a stupid name like that), it has to be better than this.

1. Frantic
2. St. Anger
3. Some Kind of Monster
4. Dirty Window
5. Invisible Kid
6. My World
7. Shoot Me Again
8. Sweet Amber
9. The Unnamed Feeling
10. Purify
11. All Within My Hands

Rating: 38%

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%

METALLICA: Master of Puppets

Produced by Fleming Rasmussen

Released: 1986

There are albums that are called legendary, and then there are albums that truly are so. Master of Puppets is such a beast, a recording held in such high esteem even by people who don't ordinarily listen to heavy metal that it almost defies being reviewed. A breathtaking album when it was first released, this is still one that I come back to again and again among the hundreds and possibly thousands of other records in my collection almost two whole decades later. The reason for this is simple: Master of Puppets is easily one of the best albums ever made. It's almost superfluous to talk about the album's intro, the clunky, clean strumming that becomes a surging, orchestral-sounding clashing that in turn metamorphoses into one of the most memorable metal riffs of all. It seems equally redundant to discuss the crawling horror evoked by "The Thing That Should Not Be" or the magnificence of the title track. While it's true that Master follows almost the same kind of plan as its worthy predecessor, it's also true that Ride the Lightning was merely the prototype for what Metallica was to achieve.

Metallica got everything right here. There's a perfect balance between all the emotions of the band's music as they shift between menace, malevolence, anger, frustration and despair. There's James Hetfield's lyrical vision, putting together intelligent, thought-provoking songs about drug addiction, TV evangelism and war, not to mention his own vocal performance which is the best to be found on any Metallica album. There's also the mix, again among the best of the catalogue, and the playing itself, centred around Hetfield's wrist-achingly tight and complex rhythms, complemented by what is perhaps Lars Ulrich's best ever drumming and guided by Cliff Burton's amazing gift for musical arrangement, perhaps best exemplified by the expansive genius of "Orion", arguably one of the finest rock instrumental tracks of all time.

As with all Metallica releases, at the very heart of Master of Puppets is some stupefyingly incredible songwriting. This is the key reason why this album still stands so tall after such a long time: where other albums from the period, even the very good ones, are beginning to sound dated, Master of Puppets is as powerful and as relevant now as in was in 1986. With a mere eight songs but at just under an hour in length, Metallica's third album epitomises the very best that heavy metal has to offer and as close as others have come, it's still arguable that any have quite matched what they did here.

1. Battery


2. Master of Puppets


3. The Thing That Should Not Be


4. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)


5. Disposable Heroes


6. Leper Messiah


7. Orion


8. Damage, Inc.

Rating: 100%

METALLICA: Untitled

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.

1. Enter Sandman


2. Sad But True


3. Holier Than Thou


4. The Unforgiven


5. Wherever I May Roam


6. Don't Tread on Me


7. Through the Never


8. Nothing Else Matters


9. Of Wolf and Man


10. The God That Failed


11. My Friend of Misery


12. The Struggle Within

Rating: 76%