Here's my humble opinion about the albums:
"Kill'Em All" - This is Metallica's 1st album. In this album the Thrashing speed is main feature.
This is a great album for the speed moshing addicts... The songs have different styles, due to the several lineup changes in the band.
the themes go from the amazing speed of Dave Mustaine (now in Megadeth), to the overwhelming art of Cliff Burton...
Always with great drum and guitar Riffs by the band's founders: Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield.
James (aka Jaymz) voice was still a bit "green", allowing him to bring a sharp felling to the vocals, very characteristic of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM).
The lyrics are mostly about "Thrashing", and there's also some apocalyptic themes such as "The Four Horsemen" (but it's mostly all in a "kill kill kill" kind of mood)...
Overall this is a great album, and Metallica's inexperience can only be susceptible in comparison to later albums...
"Ride The Lightning" - This is my personal favorite...
Metallica managed to mix the speed of Thrash Metal with outstanding techniques, making one of the best metal albums at the time.
With this album Metallica got great world wide recognition, leaving the critics stunned with the band's quality!
"Ride The Lightning" has "light-speed" tracks such as "Fight Fire With Fire" and "Trapped Under Ice", some Metal masterpieces
like "Ride The Lightning" and "Creeping Death", not forgetting the instrumental piece of Art "The Call Of Kutulu", mastered by the great Cliff Burton...
All in a kind of metal that was never seen before! The lyrics have various subjects, going from social interventions (against the death penalty and nuclear weapons),
to the historical theme "Creeping Death", passing through the suicidal "Fade To Black" (my favorite song)...
This is a "must have" for everybody who likes Metallica, cause no one can call him self a Metallica fan without having "Ride The Lightning".
This is definitely one of the best albums I've ever heard, and no one at the time could have guessed that the "four horsemen" would get this close to the top!
"Master Of Puppets" - This album brought the well deserved glory to Metallica.
Madness is the main subject of this album. It has eight Thrash Metal tracks, to drive you out of your mind!
Definitely one of Metallica's best albums ever!... The speed of "Battery" and "Damage Inc.",
mixed with the art of "Master Of Puppets" and "Orion", all for the insanity of "The Thing That Should Not Be" and "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)"...
Compared to "Ride The Lighting", this album seems to be more elaborated.
The "four horsemen" amazingly gave more speed into their music, and raised the complexity of the songs at the same time...
Rated among the beast instrumental songs, "Orion" is another piece of art mainly written by Cliff Burton.
Unfortunately Cliff Burton died in the 27th September 1986, when the Tour bus crashed somewhere in the road between Stockholm and Copenhagen.
Any way, "Master Of Puppets" is a Thrash Metal classic that will forever ride with the best!
"...And Justice For All" - After a long period to mourn Cliff's death, Metallica went back to the studio to record their 4th album.
This is, in my opinion, the most complex and well composed album. They amazingly made complex songs, but in a thrashing speed...
They also changed a bit from the traditional power chords, to some more elaborated chords.
They left some of the madness of "Master Of Puppets" behind, and made a more humanitarian album... The lyrics are about corruption, injustice, euthanasia, environmental destruction, and others...
The most known song from this album is definitely "One", a song about euthanasia that hit the world charts like a rock!
People were finally starting to give more attention and respect to metal bands... For the moshers joy, there's songs like "Blackened" and "Dyers Eve".
For the ones that like more elaborated songs, there's the title track, not to mention the last contribution by Cliff to Metallica, "To Live Is To Die"...
The "four horsemen" were definitely changing, and "...And Justice For All" is now considered by some as the last album by "old Metallica", and a kind of good-bye of the Thrash Metal band we all loved...
"Metallica" (The Black Album) - Surprise to some, disappointment to others, this album made every person on the face of the earth hear the word Metallica!
This album is definitely different... I can't say it's Thrash Metal... Can't say it's Heavy Metal either... But it's definitely metal... What is it then?
Well, I would have to say that it's Metallica... And that says it all...
This is a genial album to the likes of everyone. Songs like "Enter Sandman", "The Unforgiven", "Wherever I May Roam", and the Metal ballad "Nothing Else Matters";
surprised with their beauty and technique... As the first album by "new Metallica", "the black album" was one of the most sold album of this decade...
And it sold over... many... copies (have no idea of how many, but it was a lot)... Anyway, after this album, some said that Metallica sold out, or wimped out,
but I would say that they grew up... Nobody can be a Thrasher forever (have you ever seen a 80 year old mosher?)...
Everybody evolves to something (I started with Metallica, but now I'm more into Doom metal and stuff like that).
Anyway, commercial Metal albums are necessary to get people into metal,
so "the black album" is a great "transitory album" for people to start listening to the Art of Metal...
"Load" - The 2nd album of "new Metallica" went straight to the Top, getting to the 1st place in almost everywhere on Earth!...
In many shops, the 1st shipment of CD's sold out in two hours!..."Load" caused a lot of disappointments to the fans that expected another "Master Of Puppets" or "Ride The Lightning".
Metallica was changing more and more from their original style. In this album, one can notice many influences from Blues, and even Country music...
In my opinion, the only thing that is more elaborated in comparison to the previous albums is James' voice, that surprised in songs like "Bleeding Me"...
All the rest is a bit simpler, but still great, guitar and drum riffs... And the guitar solos are very far from the usual Metal, most of them being short and simple...
And not only the music is different now, but they changed their whole style. Their new attitudes shocked almost everybody...
Starting in the cover of "Load", that shows a substance that appears to be blood mixed with sperm, not to mention their new short hair style that left me in a state of shock for several hours!...
Anyway this is still Metallica, and it's a great album I recommend for the true Metallica fans, as well as for the people that are into more commercial music like "Until It Sleeps", "Hero Of The Day", and so on...
"ReLoad" - The last piece of work from Metallica is already out!... This album is
definatly heavier, and I would say that it's a bit more complex than "Load"...
None the less, this is not in anyway a comeback to the good old Metallica days...
Personally, I like "Reload" a lot more than the previous album... James uses
more different kinds of voices and some studio fx as well... The Drum breaks are a lot
more elaborated, and the guitar parts are also more complex than on "Load"... Other
than that this new album has great "not too fast, not too slow" songs such as "The
Memory Remains", "Unforgiven II", "Carpe Diem Baby", a beautiful ballad (even though
its a bit country like) "Low Man's Lyric", and also some slow, yet powerful medleys
as "Where The Wild Things Are" and "Fixxxer"... Overall this album follows in each
song, the same style as in each song of "Load"... So this is an album that the people
that really hated "Load" wont probably like, but if you love old Metallica, and you liked
"Load", then you'll probably like Reload more...
"WE'LL NEVER STOP, WE'LL NEVER QUIT, CAUSE WE'RE METALLICA"
("Whiplash" - "Kill'em All")
Back to Metallica's Main Page.