(Rated this album with 8 out of 10) Reviewed by
Alex
from Louisiana
Metallica's Master of Puppets is thought to be their finest moment by many, and I can see why. This is Metallica's triumphant third album, and the last with the late Cliff Burton. The album features 8 tracks, yet clocks in at about an hour. Metallica is, in 1986, the year of the album's release, singer/rhythm guitarist James Hetfield, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett, late bassist Cliff Burton, and and drummer Lars Ulrich. The lyrical topics range from agression, to drug addiction, to monsters from H.P. Lovecraft novels, and so on. Musically, intense heaviness is always present, but beautiful clean parts and shining solos also come through. The album, in my opinion, is not too short of flawless, other than the fet that the solos are in my opinion not top-notch. The album starts off with Battery, a fast-paced thrash anthem that will have you pounding your fist and banging your head. The next track is Master of Puppets, an epical eight minute thrash track. The intro to the song is heavy and fast, as is the entire song, untill the interlude, which is a shimmering clean part and harmony fill, followed by a soft solo, then the song kicks back into high gear with four more minutes of pounding thrash, including another solo. My only problem with the song is that the solo hardly does the amazing song justice. It sounds to me like a barrage of notes, with no real emotion. Next is the Thing That Should Not Be. To be honest, I agree. The song is nice, but I usually skip it. Welcome Home more than makes up for the previous song, being the Metallica equivalent of a ballad. The guitars are beautiful and the lyrics are great. Not to mention the soft guitar solos are phenomenal. The heavy guitar solo, well, hardly does the song justice, once again. The follower, Disposable Heroes, has great lyrics, and is intensely heavy. Once again, the solo is hardly adequate for such an emotional song. Leper Messiah is great riff-metal, with intense riffs, thought-provoking lyrics, and a solo that is almost decent. The eight minute instrumental, Orion, shows the entire band's talent, though I don't see what the rave is about Cliff Burton on this song, or on any. I sympathize about the man's death, but I honestly don't like him much as a bassist. I prefer Black Sabbath's Geezer Butler. The song begins witha grinding riff, than the song comes to a bass solo, ending the first part of the song, and kicking off the second part of the song, where the instrumental is jampacked with downright beautiful guitar soloing, making up for some abscence of the aforementioned earlier. A brilliant song, perfect ten stars. The album ends explosively with the intense rocker Damage Inc. The song is pure thrash, and also a great guitar solo. Amazing album. I absolutely love the album, but I gave it four stars because I beleive it has flaws. I had to be honest in the opinion that the solos are greatly lacking on most tracks and the bass isn't phenomenal. I'd recommend it to any fan of real heavy metal, such as Slayer, Megadeth, and Venom. I would also recommend it to fans of Nu-metal such as Limp Bizkit and Korn, as though MoP is intensely heavy, it won't scare nu-metal fans like maybe Death Metal or Black Metal would, and could possibly lead them into liking more extreme types if Metal. I would recommend it also to any Metallica fan, old school or new school. GET THIS ALBUM. If you want good guitar solos, get Metallica (The Black ALbum) in addition, as this album has amazing solos. And Justice For All... also has some good solos. For good bass, Black Sabbath's We Sold Our Soul For Rock And Roll.
