Metallica - Ranked (Part 2)

05: Death Magnetic (2008)

After years in the dark forest of experimentation, Metallica came back with a swagger to record Death Magnetic. St Anger had left most of the fanbase desperate for a return to the good stuff, and the band delivered handsomely on this release. Death Magnetic is a fresh, energetic record, with progressive elements not explored by the band since the 80s. I have to confess, I’d slept on this one upon release, and only heard it in full for the first time when researching for this write-up. I was so pleasantly surprised by how good it was, I just had to put it in the top half. There are many great songs on here, the initial headline-grabber is Cyanide, a storming composition which encapsulates the vibe perfectly. Hetfield’s growl in the chorus is pure Metallica - “Suicide, I’ve already died/You’re just the funeral I’ve been waiting for/Cyanide, living dead inside/Break this empty shell forevermore”. With the elaborate mid-song breakdown and thumping interplay between the drums and Rob Trujillo’s driving bassline, this should be your first port of call if you want a highlights reel of Death Magnetic.

The Unforgiven III is another top choice. Stepping away from its other Unforgiven brothers in the ‘Tallica catalogue, it opens with a simple piano and horns section. This eventually leads into a full-blown metal ballad, with Hetfield’s favoured lyrical subjects of feeling lost and craving redemption making for some of the most mature words he’s ever submitted for a Metallica song. The Day That Never Comes is another slow piece a few tracks earlier, however it doesn’t hit the emotion or musicality of The Unforgiven III, which will absolutely stand shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the poignant tracks on the classic records in years to come. The first half of the album is virtually untouchable. All Nightmare Long, Broken, Beaten Scarred and The End Of The Line are all instant crowd pleasers, with smart riffs and pleasing hooks to win over even the most scorned of Metallica fans who experienced serial disgust at their post-80s output.

Death Magnetic was produced by Rick Rubin, who is one of the true masters of rock/metal production. His credits read as a best-of list of American guitar music, and Metallica got the same expert treatment he has afforded to so many other great bands. The songs were written in-studio, rehearsed to within an inch of their lives, then recorded live with minimal overdubs. This is the method Rubin has used for decades, and it produces high-energy, precise music, with canyon-sized sounds, thick as molasses. And that’s exactly what you want from a Metallica album. Death Magnetic also contains Metallica’s first instrumental track in 20 years, the ten minute Suicide And Redemption. This is compositionally the most adventurous piece on the album, with several neatly-arranged sections that tell a rich musical story. It’s a nod to their early output and a symbolic cleansing of the years preceding this release. Death Magnetic was a line in the sand, beginning their late-career renaissance. It was finally OK to like Metallica again. The boys were back.

04: Ride The Lightning (1984)

We’re into the big hitters, now. Ride The Lightning was released barely a year after their debut, and without taking anything away from Kill ‘Em All, Lightning feels like the first “proper” Metallica album, as it introduced musical and lyrical trends present in all their future work. While their first record might as well have been the soundboard from a well-played set in a sweaty rock club, Lightning was crafted with much more care and maturity. Cliff Burton was mainly to thank for that. The prodigal bassist had introduced the rest of the band to music and songwriting theory, and was also given more creative control during the writing process for Lightning. This enabled Metallica to sharpen their style, and put them on their way to developing that unmistakable sound that’s now world-famous. It all started here.

An immediately grabbing track on Lightning is For Whom The Bell Tolls, which is actually the first Metallica song I ever heard. The famously long intro is the most memorable section, leaving barely enough room for the rest of the song in the 6.5 minute runtime. The song is about the horrors of warfare, a theme the band would return to many times over the years. It showcased Burton’s incredible talent and remains an unshiftable monument in their live show to this day. Lightning also contains the first ballad Metallica did - Fade To Black. This is a forgotten piece these days, but at the time was a departure for the band famous for kick-starting thrash metal. Hetfield wrote the song after a substantial amount of the band’s equipment had been stolen during their American tour. In that light, the lyrics are melodramatic - “I have lost the will to live/Simply nothing more to give/There is nothing more for me/Need the end to set me free” - But what’s metal if it’s not over the top? Fade To Black set a high bar for the instrumentation and lyrical content for ‘Tallica’s future ballads, and it can’t be understated how important this song is in their history. The Call Of Ktulu is the enigmatic closing track, and is one of the most experimental pieces in the band's history. Again, this is all Burton, he had in fact written the bulk of the music before even joining Metallica. It’s an infectious, intricate piece, which summits about five different times, and is arguably their best instrumental song.

It’s important to note the geopolitical situation in the 80s when trying to understand why metal flourished during that period. The cold war was peaking at this time, the west was struggling to cope after the post-50s economic boom dipped, and the looming threat of a third world war was very real indeed. This informed Metallica’s music. Just look at the rest of the top cuts from Lightning - Creeping Death, a fan favourite with one of the most recognisable ‘Tallica intro riffs, contains biblical themes around the ten plagues and Passover. Fight Fire With Fire opens the album with a simple acoustic guitar piece before bursting into the fastest, thrashiest jam on the whole record, and is about the madness of nuclear war. The title track, with a memorable signature riff and complex structure is about being executed by electric chair. These themes - Death, war, despair, madness, they all fitted right in with what a lot of people were experiencing during that period. In that sense, Metallica found kinship and understanding with the world at large. Metal was striking a chord with the public; it was pushing itself into the mainstream. Lightning was part of that golden age, allowing Metallica to be at the forefront of the wave. They signed a major label deal in 1985, re-released this album, and never looked back.

03: Metallica (1991)

The Black Album catapulted the band into global fame, and made them the commercial juggernaut they remain today. Metallica came as a scene shift after a 3-album evolution of sound for the band, which had them getting more progressive with each release. Compositionally stripped back, this is a hybrid of hard rock and metal that doesn’t settle in either camp for too long. Lars Ulrich reflected years afterwards that this was natural, that after the complexity of the 80s they had worn out that road and had to change direction. What came out of this decision cemented their position at the very top of the pantheon of metal.

We all know the key players here. Enter Sandman opens the album. It’s one of the most famous hard rock songs ever and is their most popular and instantly recognisable track. The sounds of this tune - the signature melody, the piercing divebombs, the nice little flanged chord from Hammet right at the start, that “Yeah-heh!” from Hetfield and every note of each solo - are branded into the back of my (and presumably your) head. And you know what? I still love it! It’s got all the energy and head-nodding righteousness it did the first time I saw the video on MTV2 when I was in school. That’s followed by Sad But True, the signature riff of which is just about my favourite thing ever played on a guitar. It sounds like a sledgehammer repeatedly crashing into a brick wall, and makes me feel like I’m wearing a suit made of the skin pelts of my enemies. The song has that slick, stadium-filling sound to it, like it was made for 50,000 people to sing and furiously air-guitar to in unison. A simply ball-shattering duo of opening tracks. The Unforgiven is the quintessential Metallica ballad. The medium-pace soaring guitar in the verses are again still fresh after all these years, and with that wonderful Pink Floyd breakdown just before the big solo, it is a song of true extremes. And of course the centrepiece of the record is Nothing Else Matters, their universal radio-friendly song, loved by metal fans and your aunty alike. It wouldn’t be out of place on Radio 2, which isn’t a jab at all - It shows that at this point, Metallica were ready to explore new avenues, that they weren’t going to hide behind huge guitar walls and wailing feedback. They could be calm and measured. The song is a pure affirmation, it evokes pride and love for yourself. The lyrics are hair-standingly emotional, some of Hetfield’s best writing. Backed by rising strings and preceded by the beautifully simple intro, it makes for one of the finest moments in the band’s history.

Those are the four gleaming pillars of Metallica which allow it to be so high in this list. And while there are other good songs - Through The Never, Anywhere I Roam and Don’t Tread On Me are great, pumping jams that carry a lot of energy - It has to be said that not much of the rest of the album stands up to this level of quality. The last few tracks tail off, and while there’s not a particularly bad song on here, it’s obvious that Metallica is propped up by the brilliance of about 40% of it’s runtime. In terms of sales and popularity, the numbers don’t lie - Metallica has shipped 16 million units in the USA alone. But you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who’d say this is their best record. It’s still well worth it’s 3rd place here, but the quality gourmet shit came just before this album...

02: ...And Justice For All (1988)

This masterpiece, this impenetrable, unforgiving listen, the only Metallica album your weird black metal snob neighbour who’s deep into his 30s and never washed his hair will admit to liking, this is an experience and a half. The mix is atrocious, with virtually no bass and skinny tape-deck guitars. The snare sound is sloshier than the Dead Sea. The sound is pencil thin. ...And Justice For All takes no prisoners, it brushes off all judgement and is very much itself. But it’s superb. Justice is Metallica doing what they want, it is unapologetic, decadent progressive metal.

The title track on Justice is one of the great underrated pieces in the band’s discography, layered with muscular hooks and long instrumental sections. The clean/loud back and forth of the intro descends into palm muted angularity, and before you know it two and a half minutes have passed with no vocals. The mid-section breakdown is the zenith of the track, echoing the intro off the back of a gradual tempo deceleration, before throwing you back into the final verse/chorus section. It’s got that cold militaristic feel which pervades throughout the entire album, and the lyrics, as with most on this record are some of Hetfield’s finest moments - “The ultimate in vanity, exploiting their supremacy/I can’t believe the things you say, I can’t believe the price you pay/Nothing can save you. Justice is lost, justice is raped, justice is gone.” Eye Of The Beholder is another overlooked piece, with it’s proto-nu-metal sounds and frosty observational lyrics, it’s a song that half a dozen 90s bands can thank for giving them a career.

The core of Justice is One, a steroid-infused ballad that has some of the most advanced and carefully-written instrumentation the band has ever put out. The song dips in and out of consciousness; it has a major-key section the band step into that offers a hopeful peek into the sunlight. The clean soloing from Hammett to bridge the 2nd and 3rd choruses is astonishingly beautiful. A brief bit of solace between two towers of gritty distortion, it is possibly the most accomplished moment in the glittering showcase of his career. His fret-scorching outro solo is a counterpoint to this, adding to the rich depth of sounds on this piece. The band mix their thrash and progressive styles on One smoothly, Hetfield pushing his stark lyrical content over the top of Ulrich’s pounding percussive drilling. By the time the final part of the song is fully in flight, the words get to their grimmest point - “Darkness, imprisoning me, all that I see - Absolute horror/I can not live, I can not die, trapped in myself, body my holding cell”. One ends with the kind of triumphant energy only a band peaking on their creativity can do, and leaves quickly, giving no resolution to the despair of the song’s subject matter. It’s the ultimate Metallica anti-war track, they’ve done nothing like it before or since, and it is my favourite song by the band.

01: Master Of Puppets (1986)

This is Metallica’s epic. Master Of Puppets is the orchestral evolution of the band’s classic sound, it is the album which informs every other Metallica project, the control for all their out-genre experimentation and progressive development. This was the final project made by the original line-up, with Cliff Burton’s tragic death happening only six months after it’s release. Master builds on everything that came before it while giving a platform and justification to everything that was to come. It is Metallica 101. Lars Ulrich has said as much on multiple occasions; he considers Master to be the pinnacle of the band’s musicality.

The title track to this album is everything the band is about. The instant vintage of the rhythm shifting intro ensures this is a song that lands with urgency. As the signature riffscape comes into focus, the drums follow, then the vocals, with all elements slotting into a nuanced, dense pattern. As the song starts to tighten its stranglehold by the 2nd chorus the middle movement breaks down the entire composition, and here is where the band shine. Building up from a moment of silence, with simple melodies and faux-cello sounds, Hetfield’s rare half-tempo solo sails on top of the mix, announcing the first break and allowing the brutal energy of Battery to fully dissipate, before walking back into familiar territory with an A-grade Hammett fret-bashing solo. The band climb back up to the chorus for a final assault, and as the first quarter of Master ends, so does one of the best metal songs ever written.

What of the rest of the album? Leper Messiah, the pre-finale, a critique of cults and their leaders, backdropped with a stomping march, and guitar sounds that feel like a gaping black hole in the ground. Orion, an instrumental exploration across three movements giving us a peek under the lid of Metallica’s future, more progressive records. Disposable Heroes is another powerful anti-war song, outshined by One, but riff-heavy and as lyrically bleak as any moment on Justice. The Thing That Should Not Be is one of ‘Tallica’s best mid-tempo grinders; the palm-muting saws through the soundscape as James Hetfield’s towering vocal take grabs centre stage. There’s eight songs on Master, and they are all enormous.

Master was well received on release, and has been given a mountain of accolades and praise ever since. It’s one of those outsider albums that music fans who aren’t into heavy stuff know about, it’s accepted as one of those objective classics which defines a genre and deifies a band. That’s why Master has to top this list. Even if it wasn’t my personal favourite Metallica album, it would be hard to argue against the influence, popularity and critical importance of Master and put anything else ahead of it. Metallica’s history has been patchy. For every great album they’ve also released poor or boring records, often giving us rain when we needed sun. But way back when in 1986, they were a fresh, exciting group of talented young men, who managed to pool their collective power and produce one of the unshiftable megaliths of metal.