Master of Puppets

Favorite track(s): Battery, Master of Puppets, The Thing That Should Not Be, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Disposable Heroes, Orion

Kicks ass. 'Nough said.

Heard before
Previous rating: 9/10

Much better than the black album. Only a couple of these songs need to be over 5 minutes.

Very much not for me with the thrashing and the metaling. I actually don’t mind a handful of their songs I suppose, but only a few of these got close to being there for me.

Listened to this a ton of times in my teens. It’s the same album I remember. The latter half is much weaker than the beginning. I can hear some of the bass in the remastered version. The guitar tone gets a little tinny at times.

Solid. I think it starts out like a bat out of hell, but it slows a bit at the end. I'm tempted to give it 5 stars because it's not a 300th shitty "classic rock" album, but I think it'll be 4 stars from me.

I’m at a 10.

I mean, look, it’s Metallica. This felt inevitable with this album. Admittedly, I wasn’t quite hearing the super duper acclaim through the first 3 tracks (all still great fucking tracks, mind you), but once this album hit “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” and started to tackle issues outside of the usual metal canon, this thing shot into another stratosphere for me. James Hetfield embodies these assholes who have monopolistic grapples on people with a kind of visceral fury that makes you uncomfortable, pissed off, mortified at the cruelty at hand, & deeply impressed all at the same time. There’s not the same grit in his voice as there is on “And Justice for All” or the self-titled album, but he more than makes up for it by just going all in on bringing these monsters to life. His vocals find an intensity that the instrumentals have to match, and they more than meet the challenge – when this album wants to turn up a solo on a whim, everyone goes fucking nutty. Lars Ulrich’s percussion finds a fever pitch that feels like it might go 200 miles an hour (or at the very least, beats per minute), the bass work is impeccable throughout (rest in peace to Cliff Burton), and both Kirk Hammett & James feel like they’re controlling lightning with their guitars.

“Disposable Heroes” is probably my favorite here, just because it feels like it’s channeling every frustration I’ve ever had with the military, but you cannot go wrong with any of the 8 tracks here as a potential favorite. “Orion”, in particular, feels so outside of what I’m used to from Metallica, and yet it’s still as vivid in its own way as the other 7 tracks here, solely from the sound design alone. “Leper Messiah” is probably my third favorite, just because those money-grubbing motherfuckers that speak such blasphemy have suckered too many people in the 40 years since this came out, and James put all of that frustration into words I could only ever hope to dream of.

It’s just 55 minutes of kickass metal that never slows down & barely lets you breathe, while feeling unstoppable throughout. I haven’t been this in sync with a metal album in quite a while, and it is SO GOOD to feel that feeling again. It is an easy, easy 10, a quintessential album of the 1980s, and possibly the best album from the “big 4” of thrash metal. My jury is still slightly out on if the self-titled is better, but at worst, it’s a tie. What an unbelievably fucking awesome album.

I can see why some would love it but very much not my thing. Kinda just keeps going on and every moment of good feels fleeting.

Grateful for the ways in which this project is deepening my metal knowledge. Previously I would get in a Metallica or Sabbath mood every month or so and put on a mix. Or occasionally the Black Album. The project has made me appreciate the political and emotional statements of Paranoid and now this album too. I had thought of the title track as an anthem of defiance, but in the context of the whole album (and probably my own getting older) the humility before the power of addiction seems clearer. Yet as we know, these guys have fought on, and albums like this make me want to keep going too.

Also -- as I've said I'm far from an expert -- but it seems clearly superior to the Black Album to me. I gave that a somewhat reluctant five -- megahits and emotional connection put it over the top, I guess -- but this is more clearly an eternal metal record.

They are way better when they have bass! And it's not bad at all but definitely not my thing

🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘

Its a classic

Why yes, I do like to rock.

Dobbeltpedal er én pedal for meget

Støj

1.8

Ever since those first few acoustic chords I’ve been hooked then when the inevitable drums come in and the album starts and just does not let up

One of the best thrash metal albums ever …. Strike that one of the best metal albums … no one of THE best albums ever .

In the cafeteria during ninth grade, before I'd discovered my high school friend group, I would sit at a lunch table crammed with greasy, pasty freshman boys. As I'd scarf down my sandwich, and I'd listen to these guys talk about obscene shit, like how hot Sarah Palin was, or the violent videos they'd found online, or Two Girls/One Cup. I hated it, but I was lonely, and these guys at least let me sit there. Many of these guys also loved metal, almost exclusively. And I think that association has always tainted metal for me—when I hear its "edgy" lyrics and its chugga-chugga rhythms, I can't help but picture these dweebs expectorating gobs of wonder bread while they bragged about how many times they could masturbate in one day.

I'll never really be able to look past the goofy spookiness of metal (I mean... look at this album cover...), but I can appreciate Metallica in a way I struggle to appreciate most metal artists. The thing that has always set Metallica apart for me compared to a lot of metal is the sheer skill in their melodic writing. Rather than simple thrashing or anger, there's some real beauty within these tracks, some real knowledge about harmony too.

I remember one of the pasty freshmen (his name was Mikey, and he was my least favorite) smugly proclaiming that "Metallica isn't even metal," which might be why I can stomach them. Huh.

5/5. Master of Puppets is pretty much the perfect thrash metal record and the best album in Metallicas catalogue. One of those albums where not a second of its runtime feels wasted. The intro track “Battery” is basically a perfect tone setter as it starts with only a guitar before the instrumentation fully kicks in, and damn even hearing this song as many times as I have it still hits just as hard. Another favorite of mine on here is “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” which is one of the slower songs on the album, but the build it goes through is incredible. and the closer “Damage Incorporated” is probably my favorite Metallica song. it really is one of those albums like Abbey Road or Dark Side of the Moon that’s just an undeniable classic.

And though Metallica has spent the past 30ish years at this point being a hollow shell of its former self, those first four albums are still all essential listens.

This one's going to get me into a little bit of trouble, but I don't think this album is anywhere near the greatest metal album of all time like most people seem to think.

Hell, it isn't even close to Metallica's best album (That being ...And Justice for All, even with it's complete lack of bass).

Overall, it's a solid album. But the quality is a tad spotty for me.
It starts off very strong with Battery and Master of Puppets. Two absolutely fantastic songs. The Thing That Should Not Be is a decent track, but repetitive and let down big time by Lars' drumming (Which honestly lets basically every album of Metallica's down, so not really unique to Master of Puppets, but there's just so much sloppy and frustratingly simple drumming on this album. For once I want Lars to be able to come up with a fill that's more interesting than just walking the toms or a basic single stroke roll, and to play with feeling instead of just holding the drumsticks with a deathgrip).

It's frustrating because Lars' drumming makes up a huge aspect of Metallica and their sound. It's legitimately iconic, and they probably would not have been anywhere as big had he not been behind the kit making the music accessible. But I honestly feel like basically any other metal drummer could have done a better job and made every Metallica album better.

Anyways, I'll try not to bitch about Lars as much going forward but god is it difficult when drums are generally the thing I pay attention to the most when listening to music (Particularly metal, a genre that is replete with drummers who could vie for the crown of greatest drummer ever).

Onto the next song, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), which is another fantastic cut from the record. Great musicianship all around. I will say, when Metallica got past ...And Justice for All, I really felt like Kirk Hammet got extremely formulaic and repetitive with his guitar playing, but here it's just generally great, inspired riffs and playing all around. And Welcome Home/Disposable Heroes are great examples of that.

Not to mention, having Cliff Burton's bass playing to play off of helps a lot. Just great basswork here. Disposable Heroes, despite my praise of it though, I do have some small quibbles with, particularly with some of the odd phrasing from Hetfield, along with some of the cleaner rhythm guitar going on feeling a little at odds with the heavier riffs from Hammet.

Leper Messiah is probably the weakest track on the list barring The Thing That Should Not Be, and the biggest reason is again Lars, so many stilted little breakdowns and bad fills. There's some good in here, particularly when it speeds up and Hammet and Burton are allowed to really get heavy.

Orion is a fantastic instrumental. Not much else to say there, although would have liked a little more distortion on the rhythm guitar earlier in the song. and finally Damage Inc. is better than I remember, with one of the better performances from Lars on the album, honestly.

So yeah. I know I was far more negative on this album than my rating will suggest, because it really is a great album. Just in the grand scheme of Metallica's discography, thrash metal, and metal in generally, I honestly think this is one of the most overrated albums of all time. I do think my previous listen to this years ago is coloring my opinion of this album a bit, but I did enjoy it more this time around.

TL;DR: Great album. Wildly overrated. Lars' drumming is horrifically bad.

It's definitely a chore, but not doing the dishes. More like cleaning your room. You don't absolutely love doing it in the moment, but after you feel fulfilled.

What do you say about a band you don’t like - who influenced a bunch of bands you DO like and defined a whole genre - that you haven’t already said three times in reviews of their other records? This is a technically well made album and you can tell they put effort into making it... but reading the wikipedia article paints it as a kinda try-hardy effort to win over critics and gain some more popular success. That sounds exactly like something Metallica would do and I don't love it.

This album and I both turn 40 this spring. With just two days to spare, I appreciate the album generator unburdening me of all the Metallica albums before my next decade begins.

Met grote afstand het beste Metallica album wat mij betreft en daarmee ook met afstand het beste trash metal album. Het blijft echter trash metal, beter dan dit wordt het gewoon niet.