Metallica

Metallica has been known as a band that doesn't do anything half-way, when they commit to a certain sound, they basically take it to it's full and final conclusion. So when they were taken under the wing of "pop-rock" producer and so-called star-maker (yawn) Bob Rock, they essentially dropped their former thrashy ways the way a space shuttle would it's booster rockets. Let me state for the record that I am a fan of many of the bands Bob Rock produced, but the way of thinking that he functions under and applies to an album's format, I can not condone.

The black album is exactly what it was meant to be, an appeal to a different audience than the one Metallica has associated with during the rest of their career. Whether one wishes to label this as "disloyalty" or "artistic liberty" is not important, but what is important is the music resulting from the change. Needless to say, the riffs and the spirit are still present, but the progressive and complex elements that originally gave Metallica it's unique edge on previous efforts has been scrapped.

The production on this album is nothing short of amazing. The drums, in particular, are loud and thunderous. Sometimes the snare hit is so powerful that I can feel my bones rattle. The bass is a loud, solid grind that will make the floor of your house shake even with the volume on 4 out of 10. The guitars have an extremely aggressive attack and a long sustain, the rhythm guitar tracks in particular are spot on. The vocals are clear, crisp, and clearly have been redone dozens of time in order to grab that sense of perfection they carry on here.

The songwriting on this album is where things start to look a bit weak. We don't have anything on this album that can be considered thrash, or anything fast enough to be considered worthy of banging your head to. "Through the Never", the fastest song on here, is far too slow to have even made it onto "Kill em" All" and probably would have been considered down tempo on "Master of Puppets". The guitar riffs are mostly quite good, but they are repeated far too much and varied far too little. The worst offenders in this category are "Enter Sandman", "Sad but True", "Don't Tread on me", and "The God that Failed". The bass and drum lines sound quite watered down (although "My Friend of Misery" give Newstead a chance to shine) and don't really leave a lasting impression.

In addition to the songwriting, it is neccesary to take into account how each musician performed on this album, which involves a bit of overlap with the riffs that they play.

Hetfield - Ironically this album is where Hetfield showcases some of his most brilliant rhythm work. "Where Ever I May Roam" and "Of Wolf and Man" are two of the best main riffs I've heard out of the band to date. Another ironic thing is that although "Nothing Else Matters" is a bit too repetitive lyrically for me to qualify it as an amazing ballad, the acoustic work on here is very intriguing, and out of all the solos on here, the one James plays on this track displays an emotional element that Kirk lacks on every solo he plays.

Urlich - His drum sound is well produced, but his beats on this album are dry and too damn slow. His fills are mostly slight variations on the actual beat itself. He does give us some rather neat sounding military beats on "Struggle Within", and his fills on "Nothing Else Matters" are quite powerful.

Newstead - Needless to say, Jason's role on this album is 95% atmospheric and support work. "Enter Sandman" and "Sad but True" are perfect examples of the patience that Jason has, as I would be bored to tears playing these basslines all the way through. His bass intros on "My friend of Misery" and "The God that Failed", as well as his short time alone on "Holier than Thou" are the only times where his presence is really of knowable consequence, although without his bass work this album would be as thin sounding as "Justice" was, and without the awesome drum work to save it.

Hammet - In my opinion Hammet has always been the weak link in Metallica, his solos are highly forgettable, with the exception of most of the work he did on the various ballads that appeared on the last 4 albums. However, I would enjoy these solos while they were playing, and would take notice when they did. Here we have very few solos that rise above the realm of pentatonic wankery. His best work on here is probably the solos of "Where Ever I may Roam", the slow portion of "The Unforgiven" and the wah pedal work done on "My friend of Misery". One additional complaint I would like to add about this album is the overuse of the wah pedal. At least half of the songs on the album have it, that's a bit too much.

The songs contained within this album basically fall into 3 categories, those which are stand-out songs (the best), those which are good but inconsistent (moderately good), and those which are too repetitive (not bad, but below average by metal standards). Here are the songs that fall into these respective catagories.

Stand Out - "Where Ever I May Roam", "Through the Never", "Of Wolf and Man", "My Friend of Misery", and "Struggle Within".

Good yet Inconsistent - "Holier than Thou", "Don't Tread on Me", "Nothing Else Matters", "The God that Failed".

Too Repetitive - "Enter Sandman", Sad but True", and "The Unforgiven"

In conclusion, this album suffers from the fact that it's creators spent too much time thinking about what others think of them. Rather than taking the self-made route that most metal bands with credibility take, or the more expedient yet equally respectable route of finding a producer that is completely like-minded and will meet you on your terms, Metallica chose to hire someone with a different set of values than theirs. The result is a compromise between two completely different worlds, ones that are not compatable with each other. When metal tries to go mainstream, it becomes pop, which is itself a form of music that is not neccesarily defined by how it sounds timbre wise but in that it orients itself completely to what others think of it. Be it the conformist music of teeny boppers like Britney Spears or the even more pathetic fashionable non-conformist music of most mainstream rock. It's adherent artists have no real musical identity of their own, and although this album represents an only slightly corrupted version of what they used to be, soon after this the disease would spread until eventually the only thing resembling heavy metal still possessed by Metallica is James Hetfield's bad attitude.