Another original thrash metal album that deserves praise from Metallica, but not as much as it's two predecessors. The atmosphere is much less dark than on their previous release entitled 'Ride the Lightning' (1984). The music is still intense and quite unique. The riff structures are somewhat technical, especially if you're a guitarist like me and you look at it from that perspective. The songs are pretty basic featuring an acoustic part on 'Battery', clean guitar pieces on the title track and 'Welcome Home (Sanitarium)'. The rest of the album consists of chunky crunch tone guitars that are quite admirable. They are also innovative and intriguing, quite memorable also.

All of the tracks display an array of various different tempos. I would say that they're filled mostly heavy thrash parts accompanied by James Hetfield's yelling that rightfully suits the music. He sings in a clean fashion on 'Welcome Home (Sanitarium)', but for the most part he's pretty effective in orchestrating outputs which are very dark, just not as dark than on their previous album. I'd conclude that he's still angry dishing out these lyrics that are rightfully hateful and destructive. The song structures are pretty basic, but still fast and tough to keep up with them.

There is an instrumental entitled 'Orion' that's quite lengthy and features a pause with just a bass lick about halfway through the song. On this recording, it's a little bit easy to hear Cliff Burton's efforts via bass guitar than on their previous release. It's not as distorted as on their debut album, but it still meshed well with music. His talent is unprecedented and it's tragic about his death in a tour bus accident. If he was still with the band, I think they would have never changed their style of music. The real reason why they changed I think was to appease their fans and sell out. The first 5 Metallica albums are good and the rest are just terrible.

Kirk Hammett's solos are still fast and furious, just not as technical as on their first few releases. However, I do believe that his efforts are very well constructed and blues guitar based like on their first two albums. He uses that wah pedal a lot, which is especially noticeable on 'Disposable Heroes' and 'Welcome Home (Sanitarium)'. As a guitarist, it's tough to emulate his solos because they are quite amazing and very much tremolo picked throughout this album. Just not as technical like I mentioned. Even James Hetfield plays a lead on the title track during the clean tone guitar part.

My personal favorite tracks are 'Battery', the title track and 'Damage, Inc.' All of the songs are good though and the band doesn't compromise. The production is decent with each track well mixed. The drums by Lars Ulrich mesh well with the guitar riffs and his efforts are quite unparalleled. Overall, he doesn't let up on putting in some great work that is in constant unison with the music. Everything in the production/mixing department went well, but you have to really crank up the volume because it's a little bit low which is the only beef that I have with the production.

Metallica put forth a strong follow up album here, though it's less dark, but still considered to be thrash metal. Each song is captivating and noteworthy. The guitars are blended well in both in rhythm and lead segments. The music is catchy and sticks in your head, especially on the chorus parts. Every band member contributed a great deal to the metal community and it deserves praise like it's predecessors. If you don't own it and you're a thrash metal lover, YouTube the songs that I mentioned and hear for yourself what the songs sound like. Own it now!

Rating: 9 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Death8699
02/09/2012 20:27