So in the past review I mentioned that Load was the first album I ever bought with my own money. I donated it to charity, along with most of my metal collection when I went through my prog phase at about 18 and I hadn’t really listened to it for years by that point anyway. When I first got it however it must have been about all I listened to for about a year. Isn’t it funny, when you’re a kid you value your music so much more when you don’t have as much of it.
By the time I got this one I’d heard the Black Album so many times I could sing it backwards. Even when I got it I could kind of tell that this wasn’t quite as good as black but it was something new and it was Metallica and I didn’t really care about anything else. And even though it wasn’t as good as Black there was some great material on there. One thing worth mentioning is this album is long. In fact everything Metallica have done since Black has been long. This CD allegedly had stickers on it advertising that it contained 78:59 worth of music, the most they could put on a CD at that time without it causing any problems. The follow up to Black was supposed to be a double album but there were a lot of unfinished tracks and underdeveloped ideas. So they recorded them and did it again the following year.
The album has a slightly poppier/radio hard rock feel to it, resulting in the band being referred to as Alternitallica. There were serious allegations of the band selling out at this point. I can kind of sympathise with that view but I’m not as critical of it now as I was as a 15 year old male who only listened to metal. The album works for me now because I’m used to it rather than because it’s an incredible album. Virtually all the songs go on for way too long and half of them should have been dumped anyway. In fact the really surprising thing is exactly how long some of these tracks are. I remember The Outlaw Torn was a mammoth but Bleeding Me is over 8 minutes long as well, no wonder I usually lost interest at about this point when listening to the album. This track actually stands out musically but it’s tough to ignore the fact that the lyrics sound like they were made up on the spot.
Overall the tracks I like the most are the tracks that were probably written with radio in mind. My teenage self is shaking his head in disgust but those are the tracks that don’t stretch too long, they’re catchy and easy to listen to. They also have the best energy to them, all of this is a pretty tough combination to beat.
