The next album on my list was supposed to be Metallica's S&M. When I read that album was actually a live album played with a full orchestral backing I decided to make a change. Heavy metal music can be completely altered with a large orchestra acting in support. The results are occasionally beautiful. I'm concerned that hearing Metallica's music reworked in such a way will taint my opinion of how they originally intended the songs to be heard in their studio album form. So I've pushed S&M back and will start with the oldest Metallica album on my list, their third album as a band, Master Of Puppets.
I've seen in a few places Metallica classified as thrash metal. Strange then that Master Of Puppets would start off with a classical folk guitar piece. It's much calmer and gentler than I was expec... Oh... well, I guess I should have guessed things would get a bit harder very soon. After about 15 seconds the band properly kicks in with explosive electric guitars and rapid-fire bass & drums more fitting of a band called Metallica. "Battery" might be about as fast a drummer can play before his arms fall off.
The title track follows and contains a much more subdued mix. "Battery" felt like a full frontal assault, while "Master of Puppets" has a much scratchier and quieter sound. The verses are a bit screwy- 4/4 for three measures, and the fourth measure contains 2 beats that aren't quite the same tempo, so it's weird and herky-jerky. The chorus is a different beast, starting and stopping and shifting time, too much to get into in a short review. Then the song delves into a softer bridge section which probably will sound excellent when I hear it on S&M, then it wraps around to the frenzy of the early verses. Quite the complicated beast.
"Welcome Home [Sanitariuim]" uses 5-bars throughout the verses, and the clever drum patterns make it much smoother than the weird beats used on "Master Of Puppets". As I work my way through the middle section of the album I have a big yawn. It's not that the album is uninteresting musically or that the songs are bad. I think the songs are a bit too long. The album is 54 minutes long and contains 8 songs. That's an average of 6 minutes and 45 seconds per song. Being thrash each song is played at breakneck pace making it feel much longer. It also doesn't hope that the songs all sound exactly the same.
One exception is the instrumental "Orion". It features many of the same elements as the rest of the album, such as the same over-distorted guitar, but has a much more measured tempo, and the song's middle third is a largely bass-lead introspective piece with very welcome psychedelic touches. The closing track opens with some cool dark orchestral sound effects that would have made for an interesting song in their own right. Sadly the band quickly disperses with the brief moments of intrigue by seguing back into thrashing the shit of their instruments.
Master Of Puppets had some fine moments, though for the most part they weren't featured in the core sections of any of the songs. They tended to be bits tacked on at the beginning or quick interludes that diverge completely from the verses. I don't mind when music shifts focuses or is composed of diverging ideas, but Metallica seems to have fleeting moments of inspiration before they go back to their bread and butter, which always winds up being very formulaic thrash. I wasn't totally bored by the album, I just don't think I liked it. 2 stars.
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