Metal Reviews

Well, let's all sit back now and debate probably the most hotly debated "metal album" in history. Metallica's Load. There's a reason why this poll is in the "Hard Rock/AOR Forum."

MISS MISS MISS *siren sound* MISS MISS MISS

There's no real reason to like this album. There are two (count em, two) songs on it that are at all decent (King Nothing and Until it Sleeps) and the rest is throwaway blues/grunge/modern rock crap with hints of country in a couple of the songs. Hetfield's vocal work is going rapidly down the drain at this point, and his screaming is laughable (except for in King Nothing). Lars is asleep. Seriously. Asleep.

The guitar solos are shitty- Kirk was phoning them all in. Nothing as charged or energetic as the solo on, say, Seek and Destroy. Not even anything close to his And Justice For All material. The bass playing is actually pretty good, but it doesn't redeem this turd of an album.

T.I.E. will defend it, his bootlicking sycophant Stub might defend it, but they're both wrong. This is a terrible album that should be confined entirely to used CD stores and the collections of idiots.

Appropriately enough, the only place I've ever seen it has been at a used cd store.

Miss.

Hit for me !

because The House That Jack Built, Until it Sleeps, King Nothing, Hero of the Day, Bleeding Me, Twisting my Hate, Thorn Within & Outlaw Thorn are all good are great songs and that the rest of it ain't that bad either (except for Ronnie, I hate that song !)

The first seven songs are very good commercial hard rock. My favorite is Bleeding Me, a fabulous song full of thunderous energy.

At this point they were no longer even pretending to be an outside the system metal act, so I stopped pretending they were and just listened to the songs.

If this album came out with any name besides Metallica slapped on it, it would have sold double. It's a great album, but it's not "our" Metallica, so to speak. They did a 180 on us with that album. I was appalled at first listen. I was in shock.

Regardless, it is a great album with a lot of great songs not very different from what Corrossion Of Conformity does now, or a band like Floodgate, etc. It's a bluesy, hard rock/metal album...it is NOT the Metallica we once knew. Compared to Metallica's previous albums it's crap, but you can't really compare it to those albums because they're a different band here.

Reload is even better than Load, in my opinion.

Now there I have to disagree with you. Reload was 90% uninteresting, and the songs sounded like the studio rejects that they should have stayed as.

Basically you have Metallica emulating the Rolling Stones in their decline, i.e. putting out albums with 1 hit and a lot of filler and trading on their reputation.

Forgot to mention that songs 8 and up on Load are not worth listening to. Basically I just listen to the first 7 and eject.

Outlandish! I definitely think Reload is the better of the two! Come on, it doesn't have "Ronnie" on it! They should have named that song "Angus."

I'll give Load 80 (for very good) & Reload 65 (for fair)... I still think the best songs of both albums would have made an almost classic album... too bad the guys spread it onto 2 different albums... :?

also, I hope Metallica returns to that particular style they were playing on Load & Reload for it would be ridiculous to see them trying to do the thrash act again at 40+ years old (even more considering what they've done after their thrash era). imho, they tried that with St Anger and that didn't work too well... :roll:

The reason why Load and Reload worked is because it was honest music. No one can say they sold out on those albums, no one goes from the Black album to playing bluesy rock/metal in an attempt to sell out. They followed—to sound lame—their hearts with those albums and I think it worked for the most part. St. Anger showed a band clearly not following their hearts, but following a path to nowhere.

They changed the way they wrote songs for fuck's sake! Who does that? After 20 years of writing music they decide to change how they do it? James only spending 4 hours in the studio a day, writing wack lyrics on the spot, laying down one-take vocals, it was just terrible. And they were so confident they still had that capability that the album is flat out laughable. Guys with that much talent will inevitably shit out something that sounds good, but only moments. There is not one good song through and through on that album, just good moments here and there!

So I agree, I hope they go down the...uh...Load road again in the future.

I'm in complete agreement about Metallica going back to the Load sound. Load and ReLoad weren't good metal albums, but they were good rock albums. And really, I can't imagine Metallica could go in any other direction after The Black Album. Unlike, say, Testament's The Ritual; The Black Album basically made Metallica the biggest rock/metal band of the decade. Love it or hate it, this is just what happens when you have a big commercial success like The Black Album.

As for St. Anger, I'm in complete agreement with everybody else in saying that Metallica just tried too hard. That whole "jam session" thing doesn't work in heavy metal the way it may work in punk or jazz. Heavy metal is about intricate song structures and complexity as opposed to simply improvisation. Combine that with the fact that the album's speed and aggression was largely forced (probably to silence the Load critics) and you get, for the record, an album that was probably doomed from the onset - but instead it was hyped up as the biggest thing since sliced bread.

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http://www.epinions.com/content_166240489092 I think this review of St. Anger describes the album perfectly.

I would have to agree with this statement. I still like both albums, though.

Wow,you sound really angry!!!!Maybe you've listened too many times to StAnger!!!!(haha,not so funny,but maybe that's all you deserve,dude).

Anyway congratulations!!!You guessed well,it's a HIT!! Good hard rock album from the mid nineties;to be ranked with ACDC's Ballbreaker,Aerosmith's Nine Lives,Deep Purple's Purpendicular,Slash Snakepit's It's Five a Clock Somewhere,Skid Row's Subhuman Race ,Motorhead's Sacrifice and Alice in Chains' self titled.

By the way,King Nothing is for me an Enter Sandman II disguised,so i prefer the frankness of Unforgiven II!!(sorry TIE,i'll lick your butt next time )

And i thought i was the only one who thought so . As for as Load goes, it's a miss for me. I'd give it 58/100.

Agreed

That being said. Here's my list of tracks from both the albums that would make a solid release. IMHO of course

1) Fuel
2) Until It Sleeps
3) Mama Said(Yes i like that one)
4) Prince Charming
5) Low Man's Lyric
6) Bleeding Me
7) Where The Wild Things Are
8) Thorn Within
9) Prince Charming
10) Fixxxer

Miss! It's not that it's Hard Rock, I happen to like Hard Rock. The problem is it's shitty Hard Rock. This is a band that is,quite frankly, coasting on past success. And after seeing "Some Kind of Monster" in all of it's horror, these guys are frauds. they don't have a passion for the music, and I doubt that they ever did. They called in the counselor to help keep the entitty that is Metallica going! WTF! They admitted it's all about the money. You can tell very plainly that James does not like Lars whatsoever! they even show the songs that didn't make the cut to "St. Anger" and those were some of the worst things I've ever heard in my life! If it wasn't for Bob Rock, this band would be completely lost. Ever since "Black" it's reeked of commercialism and lacks any soul whatsover. Aside from "Bleeding Me", "The Outlaw Torn", and "Fixxer" from ReLoad, which are excellent IMHO, everything else is just filler garbage. Even "Mama Said" is a feeble and laughable attempt at country music. Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash would jab their ears out with a pencil if they heard that tripe. If you like stuff in this vein, by all means, support Corrosion of Conformity and Brand New Sin, and BLS, they do this and do it way better.