Liste der Bands Thrash Metal Metallica Load

After the success achieved by the "Black Album", Metallica kept their thoughts in... their bank accounts and so, they decided to release "Load", an album that smells like sales.

This album is full of simple Riffs, mostly with poor guitar solos (listen to the awful One in "The house that Jack built"... terrible!), the drum work is boring but ok, the melodies are effective, and most of the time they work well. I can't really understand how Metallica could have fun playing in this album, I miss the Ulrich of "... and Justice for All", the Hammet of "Master of Puppets", well, Newsted it's more or less the same, although the bass has less relevance than in previous works and, yes the only improvement is Hetfield, which is now a more convincing singer. His voice is stronger now, he's trying different things and I like that change.

Listening to this album it's a contraditory experience: if you listen to it thinking about Metallica's past you can't help but being disappointed because of the weakness you immediately spot and because you know that the band has dOne much better before... but on the other hand, try to pretend this is the first album you listen from this band and you might figure it's not so bad, not so bad at all. You can even get carried away by some of the vicious melodies, in songs like "Ain't my bitch", "King Nothing", "Hero of the Day" (my favorite song from this album), the more balladistic "Until It Sleeps" or the country-like "Mamma said". Of course you will most likely hate songs like "Cure" (I'd dare to say this is the worst Metallica song ever!!), the weak "2x4", the sooooo boring "The thorn within" and the annoying "Ronnie" (what the hell was in their heads!?!)

So, can I dislike this album? Yes and No. To me this is half a good album... Listen to half of it and you have a balanced and well made album. Then the second half of it gets boring and with lack of ideas. If I could, I'd just keep the first 7 songs, taking away "2x4" and adding the great, great song called "The outlaw thorn". Other important thing here is that Metallica has left thrash metal, they play a fusion between hard-rock and metal which you can't simply call heavy-metal... To label their sound it you'd have to say it's something like a Power-rock-metal. Some people won't like this album just because of that.

If you're a die-hard fan you will buy it anyway (and you will probably be hard on your view about it), but to the remaining people it will be as I told before an album which will generate contraditory opinions, although I think no One will trully love it.

Note: my rate is up in One point because of the last song in the album: i don't know why but i can't stop thinking it's a classic, One of the best songs Metallica's dOne in a long time (previous masterpieces can only be found in "...And Justice for All"...

Rated: 13

Many elitists of the metal-scene consider this, (along with Ride the Lightning, And Justice for All and the Black Album) to be points of selling out for the band Metallica. In hindsight, I feel that it is Death Magnetic that is the sell-out album. Metallica had been doing things their way since the beginning: I would even go so far as to say that even Napster was dOne "their way", showing that Metallica didn't give a fuck about what the fans thought about them. They would play the game their way and that was it. Then after a few elitists throw a little baby temper tantrum over St. Anger, Metallica just bows down to their wishes, throws out a thrash album and then plays set-lists that, from their selection of tracks, try to make it out as if the years between 1996 and 2008 never happened.

Well, what the hell is wrong with this album? Why can't Metallica be free to make whatever music they want? Why must they be confined to a "One trick thrash metal pony"? Why, because they're known now, Metallica is no longer free in making their decisions? Considering that even the late Cliff Burton was a fan of southern rock (Dave Mustaine said in his bio that he liked Lynyrd Skynyrd), it strikes me that he wouldn't really be opposed to the direction of this album.

But let's see what this rock album from the heaviest of the Big Four sounds like. For One, it definitely doesn't start out soft. The opening track has plenty of speed and heavy Riffs, as only James Hetfield can create. Furthermore, the guitar solo on this track actually doesn't have wah, but it is Kirk Hammett playing...slide guitar, that is. Why is that a bad thing? It shows that he's got more up his sleeve than, as you like to libel him as, "pentatonic solos" and "wah and whammy abuse".

For reviewing sake, let's just focus on the good tracks. Well, depends on what you call good. There are plenty of good Riffs on "Ain't My B*tch", "2x4" and many of the "unknown" tracks on this album. But as for a unique sound, let's check out "The House Jack Built." Nobody seems to care for the use of the talk box, but it actually is rather cool. It gives the song a rather interesting feel that Kirk Hammett and the wah could not give. It also shows that James Hetfield, to your great dismay, was growing up and realizing that his drinking wasn't getting him anywhere.

Now let's check out the hits from this album: by "hits", I mean the songs that were made into music videos and shown to the public, not the songs you think are good. "Until It Sleeps" is in the same, dark, personal vein as "The God That Failed" from the Black Album, and is about James Hetfield's mother, whose death from cancer was a big part of his life. What, are anger and hate the only emotions you want coming out of a thrash musician's soul? Those posers can only take you so far until you're left void and with nothing. Sometimes a little bit of emotion is good. Plus, the video is a very interesting mind-fuck to say the least.

If we can say that the track-listing from "Guitar Hero Metallica" is a Greatest Hits of the band, than we can obviously see that even the "posers" like only old Metallica...so how does that make you elitists better than them? From the albums you love to hate, only four tracks (not counting "No Leaf Clover" from S&M and "Mercyful Fate" from Garage Inc.) made it onto GHM..."King Nothing" being One of them. It's a mid-paced, enjoyable diddy, complete with some of Jason Newsted's bass-skills. By the way, if you people hate all of the Metallica albums that Jason Newsted was on, then I don't want to see you saying that he's a good bassist or better than Trujillo, because you obviously hate everything on which he had imput/play-time.

Let me skip a few tracks and mention another "unknown" track from this album. "Cure" is full of heavy-hitting Riffs, and behold...the guitar solo has almost no "wah" in it. It's proof that Kirk can play something without his beloved wah. "Thorn Within" has some decent Riffs as well, and the chorus is chilling, making this One of my favorites of the "unknown" tracks from this album.

In summation, what we have here are Riffs heavy enough for even regular-old heavy metal, a few soft numbers that are sure to please the open-minded and the same band that made the Black Album and And Justice For All making something that goes back to the blues, rock and country roots of heavy metal, showing their respect for the Ones who started our great genre. It's a solid album, and their choice to play all their old songs in E-flat when playing Live is killer. Just listen to "Fade to Black", "Nothing Else Matters" or even the beloved "Master of Puppets". They've better than ever in this era, and the band adopts a "we don't give a shit" attitude when it comes to you people shitting on this album for sounding different than the old material. It shows that this is still the band who had a member who said: "We do what we wanna do, if people consider that selling out...whatever."