Metallica’s greatest album, or “the one where they sold out” depending on where you hang your hat.
Metallica had started off playing sweaty, dirty punk-metal, a genre that came to be known as ‘thrash’. The intensity of punk, but the heaviness and musicianship of metal. The band had been evolving on each album, with arrangements becoming more and more intricate and harmonically interesting, with many different riffs, time changes and the songs building in length. This all came to a head with “…and Justice For All” where the songs were generally all around the 7-10 minute mark with a multitude of riffs. The band found the songs hard going while playing them live, and even started to notice some of the fans in the audience noticeably losing interest during the duration.
Enter “Metallica (the Black Album)”, the band enlisted producer Bob Rock, impressed with his work on Motley Crue’s Dr Feelgood album with it’s crunchy-yet-polished sound. With Rock’s help, the band simplified their songs, basing them around one or two riffs, (instead of 15!) The band slowed most of their songs down, using more of a ‘groove-metal’ approach, fusing heaviness with a greater degree of melody and atmosphere than had maybe been present before.
While some felt Rock’s production sound was too polished, I feel it adds a bit of much needed bottom-end to ‘tallica’s sound. Jason Newsted’s bass is audible after being MIA on “…and Justice”. He doesn’t have the nimble-fingered virtuosity of previous bassist Cliff Burton, but his solid, chunky sound suits the groove of the new music nicely.
There are still some speedy riffs that wouldn't be out of place on their 80s albums. Songs like “Holier than thou”, “Through the Never” race along at a rate of knots. Elsewhere, songs such as “Wherever I may roam” and “Sad but true” have a slower, more epic bent.
The album was a massive success, going multi-platinum and (to date) spending more than 500 weeks in the billboard 200. With the polished sound, simpler songs, music videos, and the occasional (gasp!) ballad - the beautifully simplistic “Nothing Else Matters” – this album would also cause one of the biggest divides between Metallica fans until the next album where they (Gasp! Again) cut their hair.
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