Its no Apetite For Destruction, but maybe Metallica's best
(Rated this album with 10 out of 10) Reviewed by
ice7788
from Las Vegas, Nevada United States
After recruiting Jason Newstead from Flotsam and Jetsam to replace Cliff Burton, Metallica released an EP of covers (Garage Days Re-Revisited) and then this 65-minute monstrosity (a common running time now but almost unheard of for a single album back then). Rather than rest on laurels or repeat past formulas, the band delivered their most ambitious and least accessible album yet. Metallica shoots for epic sounding songs here (even more so than usual, which is saying something!), thereby showing off their massive technical prowess over songs that often approach eight and even 10 minutes in length. Unfortunately, a few of these songs probably should've been cut considerably, though most of them earn their longevity and all have their moments. Lars Ulrich's skin bashing will drop your jaw, propelled by an electronically enhanced drum sound that soon became widely imitated (just ask Pantera), though producer Fleming Rausmussen's much criticized mix unfortunately shortchanged Newstead's contributions. Fortunately, the indomitable Metallica crunch abounds, and when they stay focused on songs such as "Blackened," "Eye Of The Beholder," and "Dyers Eve," this band's best moments remain remarkable. The ironically titled And Justice For All is perhaps the band's darkest effort to date, as it contains scathing commentaries about a rotting world and an unjust society. But, as with all of their albums it's the music that matters most. On that front, "The Shortest Straw" and "Harvester Of Sorrow" are disappointingly straightforward and unspectacular, and the interminable instrumental "To Life Is To Die" too often falls flat. Other indulgent epics, such as the title track and the strange "The Frayed Ends Of Insanity," are more successful and are intermittently brilliant. However, the album's real eye-opener is "One," a gripping and harrowing tale of the ravages of war on the human body and psyche. Arguably Metallica's finest moment, the awesome video (the band's first) started bringing the band into the mainstream, where their popularity would soon explode.
