So I've now heard it. Maybe shouldn't have waited three decades to listen to it, it's a good album alright. By a youthful, ebullient band. Some traces of what would later materialize on the Black Album can already be heard.
They, meaning Cliff, were actually planning to fire Lars as his drumming had started slacking even then. That's another thing only allowed out of the Metalli-PR camp after 30 years. If Cliff had lived, Metallica would have been a VERY different band. Most of the issues with
...And Justice for All were Lars' demands that his drum sound dominate EVERYTHING, even down to specific EQ curves and also why Newstead got such a hostile reception. Lars also dictated that whatever level Jason was mixed, that level should be reduced by another 6dB and it was. The difference between
Master of Puppets and
Ride the Lightning, its predecessor, was that Cliff was more audible on
Lightning and the lyrics less mature and well executed.
Puppets is their best album, but it was an evolutionary step and not a quantum leap like they made from their John Zazula-produced major label debut,
Kill 'Em All. Cliff is most audible on it and the original
Garage Days Revisited EP of NWOBHM covers, all two of 'em: Blitzkrieg's eponymous anthem, and Diamondhead's "Am I Evil?," which were included on early CD releases of
Kill 'Em All.Hammet's guitar playing is striking - it is so European, as if Eddie van Halen had never even existed and young Kirk had been weaned on a diet of Blackmore, Schenker and Uli Roth.
Kirk was a student of Joe Satriani, literally taking lessons from him, and his playing sounds to me to be a more European "angular" take on that, (he's also a big UFO fan) carrying the same melodic themes as his teacher but with less ease in execution. (It also helped that the two albums where Metallica cemented their early sound,
Lighting and
Puppets, were recorded in Denmark.) Watching the
Black Album documentary
A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica, and seeing Bob Rock goad the spectacular solo (compared to his previous halfhearted efforts) in "The Unforgiven" is probably the musical high point of the movie.
But there is a very European influence all over. This might sound like a stupid question coming from someone who knows little about Metallica but does the diminutive Dane play piano or guitar or how did his co-songwriting credits throughout come about?
They all shared songwriting credits equally for publishing royalties when Cliff was alive for songs that were written while a member was part of the group. Their original bass player, Ron McGovney pretty much could barely play at all, much less write, and there are songs on the first two albums that Dave Mustaine wrote but had the lyrics rewritten by James after firing him and erasing him from the songwriter credits. Megadeth's first tracks included the "original" versions of them. Listen to "The Mechanix" from Megadeth and then listen to "The Four Horsemen" from Metallica: same song, different lyrics, and there were other riffs, melodies, and whole tunes over those first two Metallica albums whose authorship was claimed by Mustaine for years, IMO justly, though Metallica played them better. That Newstead was also excluded from credit on most of
Justice was another kick in the teeth for him and a shadow of more bad things to come. Lars takes credit for the rhythm I guess, though his studio engineer and tape editor deserve that title more than he does. There's an entire 10-minute section on
A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica showing Randy Staub ("Randy Razorblade") literally razor-splicing Lars' various drum takes into one cohesive comped-track because he was mostly too drunk to keep a beat.
Pleasantly free of Zep-influences too (rare with US heavy rock), instead I hear a lot of Sabbath in the playing.
...hence my non-worship of them. I like Zep OK, but for me, it started with Sabbath.
There are a few filler tracks, but overall this is a credible piece of work.
Among Metallica and most metal fans in general (myself included), none of the album is filler and all the tunes are regulars in their current live set.
Lightning had "Trapped Under Ice" and "Escape;" THOSE tracks are filler.
BTW, no T-Birds in 'Tallica land, but early album covers showed the band's early workhorses to be counterfeit Gibson guitars. James' white Flying V even had a bolt-on neck. When they asked Gibson for an endorsement deal after their gear was stolen on the
Puppets tour, they were summarily refused, so they hooked up with ESP and James played a-not-even-trying-to-hide its origin Explorer copy made by ESP for over two decades while Kirk favored (and still does) Jackson-esque ESP Super Strat copies. Cliff played a Rick 4001 in which he later installed a Gibson Sidewinder in the neck position after Metallica began endorsing Mesa Boogie and the lack of bottom he was used to from his s/s Sunns and Acoustic amps he had used prior made him try to make the Rick sound deeper. Eventually, he settled on an active Aria Pro II. Jason started out with Xotic 5-strings, probably because they were the most expensive basses he could find, and bounced around through various boutique brands, mostly using Spectors in the studio before discovering Sadowsky, who made him watertight instruments because his profuse sweating was shorting out the electronics in his other instruments on tour. That happened around the time that
Load was released.
BTW,
Garage Inc is just a collection of both previous
Garage Days EP's with a few newer covers and single B-sides like "The Prince" another Diamondhead cover, from the B-side of the Japanese single for "One" along with some newer and previously unreleased covers. The band was sneaky though, and in every tune that was a remastered re-release of a previous EP or single, there are small moments of backwards backing vocals, most obviously in their Misfits cover, "Green Hell." Speaking of blues-punk since I mentioned the Misfits, James Hetfield also provided uncredited backing vocals on two tracks of Danzig's first album.
Can you tell how much I USED to be a fan?
