...and Justice for All

Metallica’s history has been probably the most contentious of any within metal’s 4 decade history, let alone within the narrower spectrum of their co-pioneered sub-genre within it. The biggest mistake made in judging them is assuming that they were constant trailblazers throughout the entire 80s, though there is definitely something to be said about the products of their infancy circa 1982-84. The second biggest mistake is attempting to throw out the baby with the bathwater by allowing unearned judgment of their past material to be visited due to the repeated commercial pandering and musical failures of the past 20 years. Nevertheless, some of the band’s widely heralded albums are not beyond criticism in this regard, be it what these albums ended up influencing or simply in what changed from before. It all really breaks down to priorities, and it is by the merits of the contents that “...And Justice For All” should be judged.

As a whole, this album could be chalked up to a longer, expanded version of “Master Of Puppets” minus not only Cliff Burton, but the bass as any sort of a consequential instrument. Contrary to popular opinion, the bass is not a complete non-factor, though its presence would only be missed if it were to be completely removed from the mix altogether. But with the recent advent of the master tapes having been communicated and a few alternative mixes with the bass’ presence augmented, it can be safely stated that this was not only an inevitability that the bass was taken down significantly, but the best outcome as well. The overtly tinny character of the guitars and the semi-clicking tendency to the bass drum (a precursor to the annoying sound often heard out of some present day death metal bands) utterly clashes with Newstead’s dark 5-string bass, and short altering the tone of everything else to the point where this would have sounded exactly like “The Black Album”, the mix results would have been abysmal.

But while the overall character of the album’s mix is extremely high end and a complete departure from past efforts, this is largely where the innovative aspects of this album leave off. Some might quibble over the fact that the songs are longer and more involved, and thus this crosses over into progressive territory. Such assertions would seem to downplay the innovations of several Bay Area bands that actually went beyond mere ad nauseam repetition and actually increased the riff set to something really intricate as in “Time Does Not Heal” or “Victims Of Deception”. Likewise, when considering the wide array of bands exploring harsher vocal tones (Sodom and Morbid Saint), keyboard and effects usage (Voivod), more adventurous musical contrasts (Megadeth), or even mixing in creepy atmospheric and melodically dissonant qualities in place of speed and mayhem (Slayer). These songs are long, and there is a fair amount of complexity, but they tend to be the former simply for the sake of it, while the latter category mostly comes into play with Hammet’s lead playing, which is still fairly one-dimensional, but at least more melodically intricate than his work on “Puppets”.

It might be considered unfair to compare this album against other bands who most likely took influences from Metallica at some point (save Megadeth) and who released their comparable material after this album. But it becomes inevitable given a large sentiment amongst certain circles that this band is the tip of the iceberg and often becomes the token thrash band of people who couldn’t give a damn about the genre. The innovative qualities of the contents on here in regards to past work could be chalked up to an angrier and more cynical view of humanity and life, which is hardly anything new even within pre-metal rock bands. This is communicated through songs that are either slowed down, or otherwise expanded in scope through repetition or very slight variation in order to make room for more lyrics and still pay equal attention to instrumental sections. Perhaps the biggest examples of this trend is the overlong title song and the band’s first commercial breakthrough “One”, which pile on the repetition like crazy while putting an emphasis on expanded verse and chorus sections, all of them preceded by an overabundant amount of segue material.

To be fair, a lot of the ideas that were put together can suffer the repetition factor and come through with their luster intact. Even some of the slower material such as “The Frayed Ends Of Sanity” and “Eye Of The Beholder” manage to stay interesting despite a limited riff set that is largely based around a slightly varied verse/chorus structure. Similarly, although it takes a while to get going, “The Shortest Straw” works quite well as an upper mid-tempo version of their formerly blistering thrash style, and manages to come off intelligently lyrically withal the corniness in Hetfield’s cliché rhyme schemes. But in some cases things just take too long to get going and turns into a hypnotic binge of slower metallic grooves, particularly in the case of the overlong “To Live Is To Die” and the utterly boring “Harvester Of Sorrow”, the latter of which is a good precursor towards the dumbed down character of “The Black Album”.

There is a sentiment that this album is an ancestor of the soon to follow half-thrash craze of the early 90s, and examining the lack of consistently thrashing material on here does lend credence to that notion. The lone exceptions to the mixture of slower ideas is the lightning bolt opener “Blackened”, which functions as a better version of “Battery” by exchanging the overlong acoustic drone for a fade in approach with a much less repetitive melody, and the even more agitated closer “Dyer’s Eve”, which outclasses everything on “Puppets” and even challenges some of the more orthodox thrashers from the early days. Between the speedy drums, agitated riff work and Hetfield’s still gritty and powerful growl, everything works perfectly and pays credence that brevity is usually the preferred course in this sub-genre.

When taking into account the massive flaws in how this album is often perceived, which is usually the result of not exploring other bands in this style, the most important question shouldn’t be ignored, namely “Is this a good album?” The answer to that question is mostly yes; though it could have been a good deal better had ‘Harvester Of Sorrow” been dropped along with about 10 minutes of purposeless repetition. There are plenty of decent albums out there that utterly downplay the bass and still come off as ingenious, and there are slower Thrash albums that work very well (“South Of Heaven” and “Souls Of Black”). But given its massive notoriety, “And Justice For All” isn’t an album to be recommended so much as to simply be critiqued.

Originally submitted to (www.metal-observer.com) on March 2, 2011.