…And Justice for All

The One music video is still in my head after all these years. The rest sort of sounded like generic Metallica. 4*
Highlights: one

Surprisingly good. For a metal band

Probably my favorite or second favorite album by a band I just can't bring myself to care about.

3/5

I'm not a Metallica fan, but I can appreciate their contribution to the Metal(TM) genre. I knew I'd eventually have to listen to some Metallica albums for this project, so here we go...

A lot of this album feels like it's sticking to bread & butter metal - a wall of crunchy guitars and drums with some lyrics shouted over the top. That's fine, I don't have a ton to say about that. Where the album gets interesting is the moments like "...And Justice For All", "One", "To Live Is To Die", and "Dyers Eve" where they weave some classical guitar interludes into the standard metal structures. I don't know Metallica intimately enough to know if this was new for this album or not, but this being their first album nominated for a Grammy suggests it probably was. I do appreciate the irony of them losing to Jethro Tull; after listening to this, I feel like the two aren't as far apart as I would have thought.
A lot of the guitar solos sound like recycled Van Halen solos, but maybe that's all part of the design. This feels like a bid to bring Metal closer to the mainstream, and I think that's exactly what it did. A quick look at Metallica's history of award nominations doesn't show anything before this album and a lot from here forward. This was Metallica's big crossover moment, and that's not nothing.
Overall, I don't think I need to spend more time with this album, but I'm not as annoyed as I thought I would be to listen through it.

Honestly never been a huge Metallica fan. Always preferred Slayer and Megadeth. Slayer because they're more extreme, and being a big fan of drums, Dave Lombardo is easily the best drummer in the Big Four of thrash (always hated categorizing bands like that). Megadeth because they generally just had more range in their music. Metallica kinda always felt like they fell into a formula. And I probably would say I like Metallica over Anthrax, but Anthrax is a more fun band.

That said, it's been a long time since I've really sat down and listened to Metallica, so we'll see if this holds up once I get the other Metallica albums, but I always thought this was my favorite Metallica album. Everyone rates Master of Puppets higher, but I remember not liking the back half of the tracklist on that album.

But this record starts off with two fantastic classics, and just keeps the quality up. Love the aggression of Blackened, and the proggy riffs and licks throughout ...And Justice For All and Eye of the Beholder. It's very lightly treading on territory Coroner laid down (probably my favorite thrash band), just more in a prog direction vs technical.

Then you got classics like One which as much as I hem and haw about how Metallica has never really wowed me, is still one of the greatest metal songs of all time, and thats inarguable. Probably their opus song wise. And for better or worse, the song that they've kinda been chasing ever since.
The rest of the tracklist is great too, especially Harvester of Sorrow.

The only thing kind of holding this album (and Metallica) back is Lars' drumming. Not that its necessarily bad. Its fine and does exactly what it needs to do (lays down a beat, follows the guitars), but for a band that treads in a prog direction, you kinda want more interesting drumming with fills that do more than just basic snare rolls. It contributes later to the whole feeling of Metallica being formulaic, with Hammet kinda always feeling like he's trying to remake One on later albums. Will say, Lars' drumming on Harvester of Sorrow is legit good, with some nice bass kick patterns.

Lars is kinda like Anthony Keidis from RHCP. Clearly the weak link of the band by a wide margin, but they wouldn't be the same without him.

That said, I don't think I can knock this album for those gripes because this is just a damn classic album. Went into it thinking I'd give it a 4, but honestly feeling a 5 now.

I’m at a 5.

The elephant in the room is of course the lack of a very audible bassline, but ignoring that (seemingly as the mixing process did), I’m just fucking annoyed at myself for not digging deeper into heavy metal & hard rock years ago. Metallica’s self-titled album proved it to me, every band & album within the genre we’ve gotten before & since has proven it to me (save for “Apocalypse Dudes”, which again, deserves a re-listen on my part), and this album has once again, really reaffirmed it.

I’ve really got nothing major to complain about – I was just jamming out for 65 minutes, and I love the more political leaning bend this album takes. Everyone in the band deserves their credit, even Jason Newsted, despite his quite literally inaudible contributions to this album. Quite frankly, it’s a miracle this album is as good as it is despite a truly baffling mixing job at times. It’s not the same “commercially appealing” vibe as the self-titled is, but it’s a vibe I fuck with regardless. This is Metallica doing more of a prog rock approach on a number of tracks, letting the instrumentation set the tone even more than the lyrics & vocals already do, and showcasing it with some incredible fucking solos across the board, from a guitar & percussive standpoint.

It’s just a kick-ass album, man. I fucking loved it; someone else can write the 700-word track by track breakdown & history lesson about this one, because it does deserve that type of breakdown. I’m just gonna listen to it again and rock the fuck out, because I think the music speaks for itself. A very easy 5 for me. If it had a bassline, I might be entering 10 territory, but c’est la vie.

Yeah, it's long (like a lot of Metallica's albums), and Jason Newstead's bass is inaudible, but this is a masterclass in melodic thrash with a ton of variety and some killer riffs. I am a little confused as to why this made the list and Ride the Lightning didn't, but I'm not going to complain when this list offers up albums more to my taste.

5.0/5.0: Iconic

ive heard this before and really enjoy the album. there is no bass in the mix which makes it feel thin and makes the runtime a bit of a slog. it deserves to lose a star or even two for the mixing but it still gets a five because it’s a classic and the first half of the album is so incredible

I have to say, I've never been a big Metallica fan, that's for sure. On the other hand, this album has always been my favorite Metallica album. It's the most progressive album of theirs, it's really really pleasant with some classic songs and my favorites from the band. The only issue is of course the lack of bass, obviously - it's diabolical. But well, to be honest, I can't deny how influential
Metallica always was and how much impact on metal music that I love they had. Add that to the fact that this list doesn't have that huge of a competition of my actually favorite albums besides a few, I might aswell rate this one like that...

2 Metallica albums in one week! This one is slightly better than the self-titled but still not as good as earlier albums. Seriously where tf is the bass?

Prefer the black album but but this one was worth the listen 3/5 #albumsky #musicsky #musicchallenge

The last great Metallica album and a masterclass in thrash. It's a shame Lars sucks and insisted the bass basically be removed from the mix. Fuck that guy. My favorite story about this recording (whether true or not) is the engineer having to literally cut and splice the tapes hundreds of times to make it seem like Lars could actually play One in time. Despite all this, I still love it.

Jotain tuntuu että jää Metallicasta aina puuttumaan. Meneehän se mut ei ihan kuitenkaan.

Oh oh. Back to the miserable old blokes. Checked out after 20 seconds.

De momento lo mejor que he oído de Metallica en general, muy agradable pese a su duración. La verdad que no me importaría en un futuro volver a escucharlo porque puede que mejore la nota.

Canción destacada: Blackened

I’ve never really loved Metallica, though I’ll admit the self-titled black album is a banger and a classic. I don’t love thrash, so their early stuff never appealed to me. I have to say, though, that this album has stood the test of time. It’s funny, though, how something that is so crazy and subversive and “hard” now seems pedestrian and almost mundane! That’s not a commentary on the album, but rather the changing tastes of society.

I’d give this a 3.5 if I could, and I’ll bump it up to 4 stars for a couple of reasons. The dumb reason is because I’ve had a few albums recently that I would have rated 3.5 stars but it dodnt feel right to give them 4 - this one seems about right. The second reason is because I’m well aware of how many awesome rock bands were launched because of Metallica in general, and this album specifically.

Where's the bass???

My favorite Metallica album

A little fun, a little boring, a little repetitive, a little long.

Tolles Hard Rock Album. Mit rauhen rohen Songs. Highlights sind das sensationelle Gitarren-Solo „One“, der Teaser „… And Justice For All“ sowie der Opener „Blackend“. Gerne mal Wiederhören.