Metallica - ...And Justice for All (1988)

I've decided to go back to Metallica so I can review their other qualifying albums before I forget how I really felt upon listening. I previously listened to their third album Master Of Puppets and had conflicting thoughts. On the one hand it was musically complex and somewhat more diverse than I expected from a thrash band. On the other hand it was very long, which was exacerbated by it's break-neck pace. I don't want to do a deep dive on all things Metallica, but I do want to do more than scratch the surface. So I'm moving on to the next Metallica album on my list, their fourth album ...And Justice for All.

The albums opens with "Blackened" which makes me think of chicken for some reason. The song has nothing to do with burnt peppery poultry. As expected it features really fast guitars and drums, dark lyrics about death and fire and metal, and lots of yelling. The title track follows and opens with a neat light guitar lick, which is quickly thrown out so we can get back to playing really distorted, loud and dark. If you're going to listen to Metallica, you'd better like that heavy, mean distorted guitar sound, because that's what they're going to play. Not that you should expect a thrash band to not use that sound, but a little variation would certainly help mix things up a bit. It might help me differentiate between these songs a bit.

"One" has a slightly different feel, mainly because someone other than James Hetfield is singing lead- I should probably look it up. On the other hand, meh, he's not doing anything really different. He's even using that thing Hetfield does where every line ends with "AAAYYYAH!" or "OOOOOOHHHWAH!" In spite of that the first half of the song doesn't have an angry vibe. It almost feels hopeful, though not really happy. The second half picks up the intensity and falls back into what Metallica usually offers up- really fast thrash and James Hetfield growling. At this point, whatever.

As the sixth track, "Harvester of Sorrow" starts playing I realize I've been listening to ...And Justice for All for nearly 40 minutes, and I'm just over halfway through. The biggest problem I have is these songs are just too long. The same thing happened on Master of Puppets. Granted during these long stretches the band members show great skill and the songs diverge into different movements. But the base nature of thrash metal is just so stilted and technical, especially since Metallica sticks with two guitars, bass, and drums with very little variation in sound. The playing and song writing are impressive, but the artistry is lacking. The most interesting parts of the songs tend to be the opening 30 seconds or so, where the band will often play a short intro that's a lighter derivation of the song's main theme.

So if you like Metallica, you probably already own this album. If you don't like Metallica you won't be convinced to like them listening to it. 2 stars.