by Rob Wood
With the release of ReLoad, the new album by Metallica, many Metallifans had hoped for a return to glory. The lingering aftertaste of Load was still fresh in their mouths and that kind of weak, alternative sound made most pure metal fans nauseous. Unfortunately, while those thundering gods of "dinosaur rock" have returned to the genre of music that made them feared in the hearts of mortal men, they still seem to have lost a beat or two from the time when their lyrics could cover the land with darkness and their image evoked terror and mayhem in the world's collective consciousness.
Load introduced a new method of musicmaking by the band. The foursome produced the album in something of a reverse order. They wrote and recorded the instrumental music first, and then Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield would write the lyrics to fit the rhythm of the songs. ReLoad continued the trend. Both albums were written during the same general time period and it appears as though the best of these sessions was released on the first of the two. Load sold over four million copies, so the band and their record label, Elektra, decided to go ahead with the release of the rest of the material on another fulllength album, The Crap Left Over ... er, ReLoad.
To be fair, the instrumentoriented portions of the music are electrifying. They hit the listener's ear with all the brute force of a freight train and never let up. That, of course, is part of the album's major downfall. The music's juggernautlike intensity just overwhelms Hetfield's attempts to keep up. It's like a Sherman tank with a nineyearold at the wheel.
"Fuel," the CD's first track, exemplifies this image. It begins with a barrage of musical firepower so intense, it hits the listener like something physical. This musical pace remains constant, as Hetfield appears to struggle to find even meaningless lyrics such as, "Fuel is pumping engines. Burning hard, loose, and clean ... Churning my direction ...," and the like.
Integrating Marianne Faithfull into "The Memory Remains" gives the song a second dimension, but the all-too-obvious lyrics "Fortune, fame. Mirror vane. Gone insane..." limit the track's effectiveness in establishing a point.
With "Devil's Dance," the band again proves that they can musically call upon the ire of the ancients, but Hetfield then ruins the song with the opening lines "Yeah, I feel you, too. Feel...those things you do." It is enough to make one cringe in embarrassment for the former point-man of a once-dominant force in the world of metal.
"The Unforgiven II" can not even hold its own, musically. It takes the somber countenance of the original and brings it into the realm of the sellitall trash metal from the Eighties. Talk about unforgivable.
"Better Than You," "Slither," "Carpe Diem Baby," and "Bad Seed" all seem to come off as trash talk, a la David Boston: loud, but shallow and unsupported by anything substantial. It seems the band has developed a "We'rethebestandyouallknowit" attitude. Watch out for bands such as Pantera and Megadeth, guys. They might just put a Marcus Ray hit on you.
"Where the Wild Things Are" (Does the earlier "nineyearold" reference ring a bell?) actually does contain a great deal of merit. Lyrics such as "So wake up, sleepy one. It's time to save your world. You're where the wild things are. Toy soldiers off to war," combined with a solid rhythm and bass, give the song multiple levels of thought and proved that Metallica still has potential.
"Attitude," unfortunately, displays the band's slickster/alternative/look!we'retoughguys sides. It's neither intimidating nor more thoughtprovoking than any other song you might hear from the likes of Poison or Motley Crue.
"Fixxxer" rounds out a disturbingly mediocre Metallica album. To use the words "mediocre" and the name Metallica in one sentence used to be sacrilege among all fans of heavy metal. Over the past two years, it has disturbingly enough, become the norm. MR