The title of this album kept niggling at me, that an earlier track in the psychedelic era had a similar title; I could recall the melody but not the artist nor the title. When I did a search back through the archives, the track that I was thinking of was The Painter Of Women by The Beau Brummels. Well, it contained the word “of”, so I was, er, 25% correct....
Metallica take us into full-on thrash metal territory, with the track Disposable Heroes (but not of Hiphoprisy) being the best example of the style – really fast and frenetic drums from Lars Ulrich, followed by thrashing guitars to give a wall of noise feel coupled with the onward rush of a bullet train to the overall tempo. The track is about troops as cannon fodder, and acts as a kind of counterpart to Black Sabbath’s War Pigs.
And speaking of Sabbath, Metallica build upon their sound, as well as the harder metal of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. Although I usually note that a full album of metal or punk tends to get a bit wearing after a while, for some reason this one didn’t. Okay, I did listen to it in chunks, but the mix is such a distorted wall of noise that it becomes almost like a comfort blanket. At times, James Hetfield’s vocals sound a little like Ozzy.
It helps, as well, that a lot of the tracks on here are 6-8 minutes long which gives them time to breathe, and Metallica often break the tracks in the middle with a quieter portion where Hetfield plays a bit of acoustic guitar, or Kirk Hammett plays a solo that’s more Gilmour than Van Halen, so it’s not all thrash, all the time. That said, Hammett does some insanely fast soloing on Damage Inc.
Some tracks like Master Of Puppets or Orion (an instrumental) have a delicious build and structure to them. The track Master Of Puppets is another recipient of the Stranger Things recognition award (played by Eddie to distract the bat-demon things in the Upside-Down). The Thing That Should Not Be is an HP Lovecraft homage, hinting at The Shadow Over Innsmouth (“hybrid children watch the sea”) and referencing the rise of Cthulhu - “He watches, lurking beneath the sea, Great old one, forbidden site”. Leper Messiah (borrowing its title from David Bowie’s description of Ziggy Stardust) is about religious hypocrisy.
Put this one on the pile of albums I wasn’t expecting to like but was pleasantly surprised by.
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