A very different kind of beast compared to the first four albums. I prefer the early Metallica era myself, but as arena/stadium thrash metal, this album is perfect.
I definitely prefer it to
Load and
Reload. Yeah, it may be borderline commercial and deliberately accessible, but this beast does exactly what it sets out to do and absolutely delivers the goods.
It’s also badass, brooding, and full of attitude in all the right ways - at least imo. The production is excellent; the sound is massive and “heavy, baby.” That black magic album was needed to lure masses of infidels into the metal realm.
1. Enter Sandman 10/10
2. Sad But True 10/10
3. Holier Than Thou 10/10
4. The Unforgiven 9/10
5. Wherever I May Roam 10/10
6. Don't Tread On Me 8.5/10
7. Through the Never 8.5/10
8. Nothing Else Matters 10/10
9. Of Wolf and Man 8/10
10. The God that Failed 8/10
11. My Friend of Misery 9/10
12. The Struggle Within 8/10
What negative thing can I say about this album? Listening to it again in recent years, I’ve started to notice that it sounds somewhat sample-like to me. I mean the recurring motifs, guitar passages, and little musical figures - they feel almost like tasty samples sprinkled throughout the record. That gives the album a slightly robotic feel.
Also, it always seemed to me that
Of Wolf and Man,
My Friend of Misery, and
The Struggle Within were produced a little differently from the other songs. Or maybe it has more to do with the style of the songs themselves - I don’t know.
To my ears, those tracks have more of a “shhhhhhh” kind of sound - more hissy or something like that. Not quite as much guitar “oomph.”
Back in high school, I used to play songs from this album at discos - not as a DJ, but as someone promoting different kinds of music - and we danced to them. Of course, mainly
The Unforgiven and
Nothing Else Matters. Nobody complained.