After a fairly restful weekend, it
was back to work today. On the plus
side, back to work means getting to listen to music on my walk to and from the
office. Life is full of positives if you
look for them, my friends.
Disc 433 is……And Justice for All
Year of Release: 1988
What’s up with the Cover? Lady Justice’s statue is being torn down, presumably
by her lessers (that’s who usually attacks justice). Or maybe, since Ms. Justice’s scales are full
of filthy lucre, we are to assume that she’s gone astray and it is the good
folks tearing her down. I can’t say for
sure. What I can say is that she was
apparently torn down on a cold day.
How I Came To Know It: As I noted when I did my
first Metallica review way back at Disc 93, my good friend and former
room-mate Greg put me on to Metallica.
“…And Justice for All” was a favourite of mine back then, and so it was
an easy decision to purchase it. I think
this was the first Metallica album I bought after I no longer had access to
Greg’s CD collection.
How It Stacks Up: I have five Metallica albums (all the good stuff,
minus “Garage Days.”) It is a tight
competition among the top four albums, but I really like “…And Justice for All”
so I’ll say it is second. “Master of
Puppets” might challenge it for the silver medal on the right day.
Rating: 4 stars
In 1969 Three Dog Night taught us
that “One is the loneliest number that
you’ll ever do.” U2 decided years
later that “One” should remind us
that we’re not alone and that we need to carry each other (twice, in fact). Metallica’s approaches to the same issues of
solitariness on their own song called “One”
lead them to contemplate the life of a wounded war veteran with no arms, legs,
eyes, ears or mouth lying in a hospital bed forever. Yeah, they’re kind of hard core.
Metallica’s “One” is an amazing mix of hard and soft, shifting riffs, mournful
solos and the beauty that is Lars Ulrich’s double-bass drum, which has spawned so
much heavy music that followed, for good or ill. The song is brilliantly constructed, and as
art has long ago surpassed its initial inspiration – the 1971 anti-war film
“Johnny Got His Gun” – for both skillful delivery and emotional impact.
Fourth of nine tracks, “One” anchors this record, but it doesn’t
stand alone; it is surrounded by heavy waters filled with unrelenting
doom. Metallica likes their topics raw
and real, and for all the ferociousness of their proto-speed metal (and it is
as ferocious as anything alive today) they have a lot to say as well on
subjects as varied as censorship, war, mental illness and the permanent
destruction of the earth.
They mostly say it with
music. The lyrics have emotional truth,
and James Hetfield sings them with the right mix of strength and
frustration. That said, without the
music they lose their impact and read a bit grade school. The best lines are from “To Live is to Die” which is an almost ten minute track that is
largely instrumental. However,
disappointingly the first two lines in the song -
“When a man lies he murders some part of the world.
These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives”
-
are both lifted from somewhere else.
The first line Merlin says to Arthur in the 1981 movie “Excalibur.” The second is from a poem in the 1977 Stephen
R. Donaldson fantasy novel, “Lord Foul’s Bane.”
Fortunately I love both of the source works (and apparently so does
Hetfield) but unfortunately Metallica does not credit them in the liner
notes. I guess 1988 was the time rap was
sampling the hell out of everything for free though, so why not metal? Still, the writer in me would’ve appreciated
a footnote.
When it comes to the music,
Metallica takes a back seat to no one. “…And
Justice” came out in 1988, a time when much of the metal scene was starting to
implode into hair metal and the beginning of grunge. Metallica demonstrates that true heavy metal
is alive and well, delivering song after song driven by heavy, headbanging
riffs that are surprisingly melodic.
There are only nine songs, all of
which are long, ranging from slightly over five minutes to almost a full ten. Of all nine tracks, only “To Live is to Die” had me glancing at my
MP3 player to see if it was over yet, and even it has its moments of symphonic
greatness. The other songs are exactly
as long as they need to be throughout.
At 9:44, the title track, “…And Justice for All” is every bit as
long as it needs to be. With competing
but equally compelling guitar lines, it compared favourably to Black Sabbath at
their best. The equally glorious “Harvester of Sorrow” has a Kirk Hammett guitar
solo that reminded me of Blue Oyster Cult’s Buck Dharma (for those who don’t
know me, this is a high compliment). And
when Hetfield goes for the low note on the chorus it feels like he is actually harvesting
sorrow. I’m not sure what farm tool you’d
use for that, but I’m confident it would be made out of metal.
With all of these pounding guitars
and furious drums pedestrian lyrics like Anger/Misery/You’ll
suffer unto me” take on a strange depth that they have no business
having. On the “Frayed Edge of Sanity” they even work in what I think is an homage
to the mining song the seven dwarfs sing in “Snow White” and pull it off.
This album isn’t perfect, but if
you want some energizing heavy metal that takes no prisoners and eschews having
you think about important issues in favour of having you feel about them, then
this album is for you. I certainly enjoyed it.
Best tracks: …And Justice for All, Eye of the Beholder, One,
Harvester of Sorrow
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