JudasMyGuide
Ancient Mariner
Yeah, I 100% agree. One is uncommon in structure, yet so catchy it can captivate a listener immediately - and yet the catchiness is of a different kind, even years afterwards you just won't easily overplay the song, however much it has lived in your head rent-free as an earworm.
The progress from a heartfelt ballad to a captivating, energetic metal instrumental isn't new, in fact it's the third time around when Tullica themselves have done the resident ballad of their 80s album so, but I'd dare to say it is perfected here, with none of the previous examples managing to be so catchy in the first part and to provide such emotional catharsis in the second one.
I have pointed out the overwrought melodrama and I stand behind that - I'd say a symbolic assessment thereof might be when many, many years ago I was talking about the song to wifey and she - never a professed Metallica fan, then or now - somehow conflated the title with the theme and said something along the lines "wait, that's the song with the one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed soldier?" And I just bursted out in laughter and realised that thematically, the song was written for fifteen-year-olds... but that it also doesn't matter. The music itself carries the emotional brunt of the song, Hetfield is at his singer-songwritery best. It feels like song to play to people to not only accustom them to Tullica, but maybe to metal in general?
Indeed - the Metallica melodies and harmonies, much like the melodies and harmonies of, say, Alice in Chains, possess the unique quality of being immediately captivating and sounding almost "radio-like", but also being quite untrivial, because when you think about it, no-one sounds exactly like that. Hetfield's snarl and inflections are idiosyncratic as fuck and it doesn't really matter if they're playing for 500.000 people or 5.000.
Somehow, I am reminded of Todd in the Shadows' Trainwreckords video on Metallica's St. Anger. To quote: "Let this be entirely clear - before St. Anger, Metallica was not 'big for a metal band', they were biiiiig. I heard Enter Sandman playing at Walmart. I remember seeing them repeatedly voted on Total Request Live. Yeah, you'd see Lars Ulrich on TRL next to Britney Spears, Eminem and the Backstreet Boys, they were that level of popular." And yeah, popularity does not equal quality, but you don't become the biggest metal band ever by sucking all the way, like all the tr00 kvltists and all those who had Tullica as their gateway band to metal but got tired of the fact they're mainstream seem to insinuate.
Metallica truly are the Beatles of metal - for their genuine striving for grandness, for their success at being catchy and accessible, yet sounding like no-one else, really, for their desire to to something new. Whatever you think of their 90s period, whether you think it was a sell-out or not (and I'd personally argue that Death Magnetic was a bigger sellout than the Black Album and Re/Load combined), their push to do new things was laudable. In fact, it's the same with the unfortunate St. Anger and Lulu - whatever you make of them (and I'd argue both are quite overhated), it's something Lars, James et. al. didn't have to do. Those were huge risks that they, as possibly the most well-off metal band in the world could just let pass. And they didn't. And I find that inspirational, in a way.
One is not an anomaly. It is not a byproduct of a desperately mid band. It even might not have been the wise thing to do - the third "progressively heavier ballad" in as many albums, the theme/lyrics being quite a risk (because on paper it really smells of possible cringe), they just lost Cliff (who was the most accomplished musician of the band by any metric by then)... and they did it. Allegedly, they lost some of the loudest tr00 fans back then, because they made a ballad with a music video for it, which was allegedly something they had promised they would never do. Maybe that's just an urban legend.
But like I said in the original post, I'm years and years out of my Metallica phase. I don't listen to them very often, nowadays (though as of now I do have their discography saved on Spotify for offline listen). But if this song won the entire cup, I would find it quite fitting. Tell me of a person who wouldn't.
I will have a listen during the week-end.