Review by Rexorcist for Metallica - ...and Justice for All (1988)

It's about time I reviewed this album.  Metallica is my number one metal band, but it's been ages since I gave this whole album a spin.  Part of it is that I prefer the more atmospheric production of Ride the Lightning and the catchiness of Master of Puppets.  But I really do love a good prog album, and easily find myself making up proggy rhythms on a daily basis for fun.  Honestly, I haven't been living up to my status as a Metallica fan, and I need to at least memorize a couple of the lesser-known songs from this album.  So since I've been doing a lot this week, I'm taking a little relaxation today to just chill and re-evaluate this album, instead of going through some jazz to help with a couple lists I'm working on like usual.

This is basically Metallica's "hey, look what we can do" album.  No joke.  This whole album was about showing off.  Don't believe me?  Listen to "Blackened" and tell me its outlandish and outrageous behavior doesn't bring to mind Frank Zappa.  We have pieces of 3 different songs taped together in a brutally bold and experimental thrasher that challenges any aspiring guitarist's mental capacity while remaining as catchy as it is intriguing.  And that's within six minutes.  The title track is different.  it's slower and more melodic, going into groovy and even solemn solos like these nine-minutes are just another three.  I had accused Master of Puppets of being bloated before, and still say that it feels as such when compared to the shorter Ride the Lightning, but this one song fixes that.

"Eye of the Beholder" barely has any progressive behavior to it, largely encompassing the time change in the chorus.  Otherwise, it's about as proggy as the least proggy songs on MoP.  And up to that point, it's the shortest featured song (by ten seconds).  It bears an almost groove metal sound.  Ironically, its repetitive main melody combines perfectly with the more healthy melody of Hetfield's lyrics.  It would stick out like a sore thumb if not for the usage of the same instruments, tones and emotions of the opener.  it's a straightforward song that acts as a reminder that you're listening to Metallica, and not some heavier King Crimson knockoff.  Good choice on their part, and a good justification for the simplicity in comparison.  This decision brings to mind the lowering levels of heaviness in side A of Ride the Lightning, where For "Whom the Bell Tolls," track 3, was barely grasping the thrash tag for love of gothic poetry.  So while this song is still a great one, it's probably the worst thus far, whereas the same can't be said for For Whom the Bell Tolls.

And now for "One," which is the big hit from AJFL.  As is standard for Metallica albums at the time, this is the point where the ballad behavior comes in.  And this one's serious about that singer-songwriter guitar style.  The acoustic and electric effortlessly mold into a serene but chilling intro into a lyrical memory of war. This song is a heavy reminder that Metallica are just as lyrically relevant as they are technically.  Of course, the band was never afraid of bringing the ballad into a heavier realm.  We have breakdowns for the third act, and after what we just got, this turn of events brings our despair into anger and potential insanity.  This slow and simple behavior expands into hyper-velocity hypnotism that takes us on a metronomic journey through an explosive battlefield via aural presence rather than lyrics.  Eventually, it just jams and rocks it like a tux.

Disc 2 begins with "The Shortest Straw," which kicks off with tribal drumming and riffing with a slightly industrial approach in its composition.  But afterwards, its song structure becomes more typical and even dives into the heavy jamming of speed metal bands like Venom and Exciter.  You can sense some punkish energy coming from Hetfield in this one.  Kicking off the second disc with a more blatant "speed / thrash hybrid sound as opposed to pure thrash was a good choice.  After it seemed like all of Metallica's tricks had been used up on this song, you may have forgotten the speed metal they dabbled in since Kill 'Em All.  This song is also the most melodic and riff-oriented song so far.  There isn't any time for repetitive riffs after the short intro is done, until the third act.  It's all about boasting that jamming you know rock and metal for.  The third act goes back to the behavior of the intro with a guitar solo attached or about 30 seconds before the final verse.  Honestly, for its more poppy and speedy sound, this feels like one of the most (but not THE most) creative songs on the album.  It made me hyped for what was coming next.

"Harvester of Sorrow" is a favorite among Metallica fans, but up to this point, I'm ashamed to admit that I had no recollection of it until it came on.  Lars was back to standard Metallica behavior as a gothic tone took the intro and slow and steady took the rhythm with haunting backing effects.  There's a powerful evil edge in the slow pacing.  Makes sense considering the lyrical content is about a man snapping and abusing his family.  This is maybe the darkest song so far.  If it were speedy, and had more background detail, it would likely lose its potency.  The weird thing is that it's the shortest song so far, even though its potential could've been expanded on considering the overly experimental quality of the intro, so it's a bit of a shocker to me that this song didn't have an extra two minutes attached for some weirder directions.  But, it still never lost its power.  Lyrically, the subject matter reminds me of the first time I read about a father murdering his family, the father of young actor Judith Barsi.

Now at song seven, I had decided that since only two songs out of six fit the prog bill, I was hoping this next song would fix that and get back into the prog game.  "The Frayed Ends of Sanity" begins with a metallic version of the guards' song in Wizard of Oz.  Better than when Septicflesh wrote the song "Communion" and accidentally did a symphonic death metal variant of the Meow Mix theme song, right?  This song goes back into the most standard behavior one expects from Metallic and sounds like something right from Master of Puppets.  It has more melodic and rhythmic capacity (more notes) but despite its strong grip, it's not quite as dark as "Harvester of Sorrow."  But since it sounds like a recreation of the previous album, I still give it points for unpredictability.

Now we get to some real craziness: "To Live Is to Die."  This is normally the part where Metallica whips up a nine-minute instrumental epic.  As an acoustic solo is overtaken by a simple metronome of deep and heavy drumming and sluggish riffing which Melvins would be proud of, one immediately comprehends that the black distortion of "Blackened" may return.  Its jam factor largely follows suite for a few minutes allowing the song to slightly mutate overtime in its own repetition.  Eventually, it caves into the somber side of the word, "epic," but never breaks tradition or goes into Hans Zimmer territory.  Halfway through, our metal does become quite and give us a slight bit of violin, following the metronomic pattern of some pieces of this song.  And we end with the song getting more quiet and melodic overtime, representing a full mutation.  So we have a perfect balance of simplicity and complexity here, as this song shows the band is proud of the changes they put it through for nearly ten minutes.

The final song is the fastest, nastiest and the shortest of them all: "Dyers Eve."  It bears the temple of "Fight Fire with Fire," starkly contrasting with the previous song's ending and bearing connection to the first half of "To Live Is to Die" via genre.  It's a beautiful clash of styles that even further justifies the album's creativity over more than an hour.  This straightforward thrash song recalls the desperate attempt at heaviness that most early thrash bands were trying to achieve, being known for breaking the sound barrier of metal rather than being known as great songwriters.  And this album recalls Metallica's success at combining both approaches to metal.

I'm actually very happy about this decision I'm about to make: And Justice for All is more suitable of a metal album for me than Master of Puppets.  See, Master of Puppet's relationship to Ride the Lightning makes the album feel a bit bloated with its extra ten minutes, raising RtL's 45 to 55.  But And Justice for All is constantly changing the game and manages to overcome this behavior while adding ten again.  It's 65 minutes of variety.  The band never changes their instruments or expectations, but becomes a more technical and progressive band at the same time.  And Justice for All shows Metallica not only having further mastered their signature sound, but going into stronger variety.  Unfortunately, all of this was still beaten by the fresher RtL.  But this album has its own edge that has earned its place among the "Best Metallica Album" debate which RtL currently seems to be winning.  Many would debate RtL verses MoP and laugh at those justifying The Black Album.  But in recent times, AJfL has been resurging in popularity, and it perfectly deserves it.  No longer may those who grew up with conventional songwriting knock this album off for being too weird.  So I'm lowering my rating and position for Master of Puppet swhile raising both for this one.