...And Justice For All: 20 Years Later

still sounds like shit.

It has One which used to slay me when I was a teenager. That was one of the last times they did the two-guitar lead stuff I liked so much. Also love Harvester Of Sorrow.

Never dug it. First bullshit Metallica record. Harvester of Sorrow still rules.

still underrated i guess.

This is the only Metallica album for me*. I think it's one of their most consistent efforts. I think "myself is after me" is a great lyric (I will give you that "into it what you read" sounded forced to me even when I was 10).

AJFA also had the best t-shirts, thank you Pushead.

*Although I'd take Orion as a single song.

Does have the best T-shirts, I'll give you that.

i like the album cover. but the brittle production really ruins it for me. i find it hard to listen to as i just really want a full, thick bass running through it, and instead it is inaudible.

Not sure, but I think this may have actually been metal's first-ever (non-live) double LP. Depending on what you call "metal", of course.

I certainly don't think it sucks, but it definitely has its flaws. "Blackened" really begins the album on an asskicking note, but why the hell is the title track almost 10 minutes when it's just a repeat of the same verse/chorus/verse (and, by their standards, was lacking)?

"Eye of the Beholder" and "One" rounded out a nice first half, but the second half has the ghastly "Frayed Ends of Sanity", which outside of its random riff section in the middle, has very little to cheer about.

But..."Dyer's Eve"? "To Live is to Die"? "Shortest Straw"?

Definitely pales in comparison to the two albums before it, but still a solid effort. Not a classic, but very good.

the thing this album has in common with st. anger is songs that could've easily been edited down to half their length without losing anything. i still like this album. especially in light of how shit the black album was, lyrically and musically.

I really think the title track should have either been 4.5 minutes or excised, and Frayed Ends/Harvester should have been chucked completely.

Shoulda been one to two more short little angry thrash anthems in there to break up the monotony

thread has lost its mind

ey, I still said it was a very good album!...but RTL or MOP it ain't.

though I probably listened to it more than I did Kill 'Em All.

Listened to this record in sub zero cold this winter through Grado labs headphones and it sounded like heaven ... tried the same thing the other day in 90 degree heat and it sounded hellish - make of that what you will. This is a winter record. I have super-fond memories of it being released my freshman year in college - excellent hacky-sack circles with the thrash metal dukes.

what you need to really enjoy this record is rails of super-caustic bathtub crank

I think the defenders of this album are listening through, err, rose tinted glasses. Listen now, as an adult, in 2008 and tell me what's good about it. I thought I loved it too until yesterday when I heard it for the first time in fifteen years.

Come on, at least "One" is a classic

Great record, though no RTL.

I've owned three copies of it, just listened to it today and still love it. The one Metallica album I always return to. Couldn't care less about clicky drums or a lack of bass. They can repeat the same riffs for as long as they want too.

I think the defenders of this album are listening through, err, rose tinted glasses.

Not that there isn't a little of this.

I really hate "Blackened" in Rock Band. Ridiculously hard to play, and so much of it is musically worthless bullshit.

also the slow section in the title song is one of those "yep, we ran of ideas here" moments

This album still holds up. Never was a big fan of "Eye of the Beholder", but that's a minor gripe. Great record, "Harvester of Sorrow" ranking as one of my all-time Metallica faves.

I love this album. The only weak tracks are "Eye Of The Beholder" (which I owned on cassingle before the album came out) and "To Live Is To Die." The 1-2-3 of "The Shortest Straw," "Harvester Of Sorrow," and "Frayed Ends Of Sanity" kicks so much ass. And I love the sound - a gleaming steel skeleton. They could have stuck with this exact sound for the whole 1990s and I would have been unbelievably happy.

the songs are a bit turgid and overlong in spots, but it's still pretty good.

the other thing about this album is that for me anyway it is forever tethered to the hesher pride everybody felt when Metallica showed up at the Grammys and completely shredded everything in sight.

for reference:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=owm2XdwuVo4

this is my favorite metallica album

i listened to it 1000000x on my walkman with shitty headphones, so the bass thing wasn't really an issue. who listens to thrash metal for bass, anyway?

what's an early metallica album where you can hear the fucking bass?

the only good songs are all of them.

I'm still mad about that Jethro Tull thing. -xp

metallica-related things i have been angry about:

1. st. anger
2. endless videos with creepy old men (that aren't metallica)
3. the black album
4. the jethro tull thing
5. haircuts

wait, 1 could be every album since the black album peaking with st. anger.

I used to think this is great, but it's hard to slog through now, whereas I can listen to RTL 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Compared to what came after, though, it's an absolute masterpiece.

I'm still mad about that Jethro Tull thing.

one of my most burned-in musical memories - when I was a kid, I dug Jethro Tull (I'm pretty sure a 25-cent copy of Benefit was the first record I ever bought with my own money), but I watched them take their Grammy and went "oh bullshit and you all know it"

The only good tune is "To Live Is To Die."

Wrong at the first hurdle. To Live is To Die exemplifies the flaws of this (generallygreat) album.

Also, the lyrics on here make St Anger sound like Highway 61

Their lyrics have always been shit. The vocal style in the earlier albums make their shitiness quite unobtrusive though.

I watched the Classic Album show on the Black Album recently. Bob Rock was just amazed that Hetfield wrote the melody to the lyrics first and then the lyrics. All the Metallica demos just have Jamez going "WHAAAA-NEEEEE-NEEEEE-NAAAA".

"I'm not a poet like Phil Lynott," said Hetfield in the special.

Shit, forget Lynott, he's not even Mustaine. But lyrics aren't what I'm looking for when I throw on Metallica.

Yeah, closest I've gotten to caring about Metallica lyrics (for better or worse) is liking the part where he goes "...damageincorporated".

Creeping Death is kind of cool

don't fuck with razorback

fuck it all and fucking no regrets

the other thing about this album is that for me anyway it is forever tethered to the hesher pride everybody felt when Metallica showed up at the Grammys and completely shredded everything in sight.

So true.

are they doing a vinyl reissue of this? i wonder if the remaster and being on vinyl would give it a little more bottom?

i think some dude recorded the bass parts himself and released the bass-enhanced version of the album. i can't remember what he called it... i think it might have mentioned cliff. perhaps "and justice for cliff" or something.

yeah i think thats right

AND JASON FOR ALL! YOU PEOPLE, SHEESH!

everybody who says To Live is To Die isn't good probably drinks their own pee.

No comparison to Call of Ktulu, no, but it has that really nice quiet passage in the middle....

Also the way the heavy part comes in all off time and ominous after the wimpy acoutsic intro. It's badass. Plus I think Cliff wrote the 'lyrics'

The love for "Frayed Ends of Sanity" here is baffling - come on guys. That Wizard of Oz shit at the beginning?

i was thinking of making a poll of songs that use that wizard of oz shit (prince, mos def, etc.).

listen to the riff underneath the solo in "frayed ends of sanity", that shit is awesome.

I'd love to see that poll! (Can't forget "Jungle Love".)

Me, I really could've done without "Harvester of Sorrow". But then we'd have had an 8-song album with a configuration/track sequence a little too similar to a watered-down Master of Puppets, which itself was a kinda rehash of Ride the Lightning. Diminishing returns, etc.

AND JASON FOR ALL! YOU PEOPLE, SHEESH!

i didn't name it!

everybody who says To Live is To Die isn't good probably drinks their own pee.

the former prime minister of india Morarji Desai drank his own urine for decades until his death at the age of 99. I'm not sure how he felt about that song however.

All this I cannot bear to witness.

AND JASON FOR ALL! YOU PEOPLE, SHEESH!

i just found it. it's called and justice for jason. it doesn't sound all that great. the dude who made it really overdid the bass, imho

didn't Cliff steal the 'lyrics' from To Live is to Die from some sci fi movie or something

It was a speech by Merlin from Excalibur!

The only good tune is "To Live Is To Die."

My god this is wrong.

Just listening to the intro to the title track and thinking it's one of the prettiest and saddest acoustic guitar passages I know.

this album is grate! Legend of Zelda metal!!!

production's a little bit eh but this album forever imo \m/ O_O \m/

I am my own best friend

that's a great record too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnatnzxxtFE

Some guy has done his own re-mix (upping Jason's bass) using the Rockband game....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAvwod7BBK0

This record doesn't work with bass. That version of "Blackened" just sounds like...I don't know, Anthrax or something. The thin sound is half the point. AJFA is actually my favorite of the first four Metallica records, and the sound is a huge part of that.

total classic this album. oh how the mighty have fallen

The thin sound is half the point.

Yeah, the record's like an icey transmission from the wastelands.

Yeah, thin but effective. And as with so much metal, who really needs to hear the bass?

this album is a rare one that hasn't changed in standing with me since I first heard it. I like it a lot, but it has a dreadful middle including "Frayed Ends of Sanity", and "Harvester of Sorrow", which I"m sorry to say is still real boring, except for the middle instrumental break.

but the surrounding tracks, including the blistering Dyer's Eve, make up for it.

including "Frayed Ends of Sanity", and "Harvester of Sorrow", which I"m sorry to say is still real boring, except for the middle instrumental break.

The middle thrash out in Frayed is fucking epic, and I quite like the chorus as well.

Dyer's Eve is Hetfield's most heartfelt lyric and vocal performance ever, I think.

"Frayed End" has a good instrumental break in the middle, which would have enhanced a good-great song, but to me I can't get into it because I hate the verse and the chorus.

To Live is to Die though I love.

harvester of sorrow is actually one of the tracks i liked

This might actually be my favourite Metallica album by now.

Second to MoP for me.

for me it's MOP, then RTL, and it varies but is usually AJFA after that cuz Kill Em All is good but has a few tracks I'm not into.

sometimes RTL jumps to number one. the title track is just....wau

RTL for me personally

30th anniversary edition on its way

https://youtu.be/MqL04r775p4

"Metallica celebrate the 30th anniversary of their fourth album ...And Justice for All with a new “definitive” reissue. The remastered album will be released in a number of formats, including an enormous deluxe box set featuring live recordings, rough mixes, demos, interviews, and much more. It will also be available in standard edition on CD, vinyl, cassette, and digitally. It’s due out November 2 via the band’s owned Blackened Recordings."

This is still my favourite Metallica album. Dyer's Eve, some days, is my favourite Metallica song.

Don't think I'm that fussed about a reissue. I got enough thinly-baked-Walkman-hour dreams to last me a lifetime.

Album's great. Master of Puppets boxed set was awesome (once).

at this point i think master will always be "the best" but justice is probably the one i'm most interested in listening to today

Alternating beat syncopation on Blackened gets me every time

This album is a monument, still the Metallica album I pull out, and I keep finding things (usually the cool riffs under solo sections that I didn't notice before)

Frayed Ends of Sanity has the best one (and everything else)

Maybe it'll inspire another debate about the bass tracks.....

Oh god, I hope not - at this point the whole thing about Jason's bass on this record is the least possible interesting line of discussion - some of Metallica's most complex/intricate compositions are on this album, and the production has aged quite well - given what it could have sounded like with all the production trappings that were the norm in 1988.

I personally am looking forward to the vinyl Guitar Hero mix included in the deluxe box

i ordered this cd the other day, think it might be a good one....: https://www.discogs.com/Metallica-And-Justice-For-All/release/1695616

Love this record. Will either buy the single or triple disc version.

This - from the super deluxe box set - might be a back-door way of putting a bass-ier mix out there:

CD 5: Rough Mixes from the Vault

Blackened (Work in Progress Rough Mix)
…And Justice for All (Work in Progress Rough Mix)
Eye of the Beholder (Work in Progress Rough Mix)
One (Work in Progress Rough Mix)
The Shortest Straw (Work in Progress Rough Mix)
Harvester of Sorrow (Work in Progress Rough Mix)
The Frayed Ends of Sanity (Work in Progress Rough Mix)
To Live Is to Die (Acoustic Intro) (Work in Progress Rough Mix)
To Live Is to Die (Work in Progress Rough Mix)
Dyers Eve (Work in Progress Rough Mix)
Breadfan (Work in Progress Rough Mix)
The Prince (Work in Progress Rough Mix)

Just watched some of that video - the new version of the 2LP fits both discs into a single wide sleeve. The original (which I owned) was a gatefold. I'm not a vinyl person at all but that's kinda chintzy to me.

i think this is my favorite metallica record. i feel like i'm still learning things about it (to echo jordan's sentiment upthread). also "blackened" just routinely blows my mind, i really think it's their best opener

"to live is to die" is such a lovely instrumental too, so many gorgeous melodic choices. i hear echoes of that approach in "junior dad" too

and the riff in "dyers eve" sounds like someone madly sawing at a cello it's incredible

Frayed Ends of Sanity has the best one (and everything else)

― change display name (Jordan)

The build up/break leading up to the solo in FEoS is exhilarating.

Around the time of Load, Hetfield called this album "the epitome of showing off" ... in a way it is, in the sense that it shows Metallica going all-out to deliver a series of complex, winding songs with multiple time signature changes, instrumental passages and sections that are ferociously performed. Of course, this is what makes the record fucking great.

Hetfield's an absolute master of "our last album sucked, but the new one rules" interview quotes.

Has Hetfield talked much about abandoning politics in his music? How/why did it get into the music in the first place? This and Master have so much going on, thematically, and everything after has ... nothing?

I don't think he has. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say he probably stopped writing political lyrics as his and Lars's politics got farther and farther apart. Ulrich is basically a socialist, and Hetfield is somewhere between Ron Paul and some MAGA chud. So...best to avoid intra-band conflict by writing about stuff everyone can agree on.

Hetfield did a 180 on many of his old opinions - reading the lyrics to Ride The Lightning it's pretty clear:

Guilty as charged, but damn it, it ain't right
There's someone else controlling me
Death in the air, strapped in the electric chair
This can't be happening to me

Who made you God to say
"I'll take your life from you?"

lol

I wrote about the 10th anniversary of Death Magnetic for Stereogum, and talked about ...Justice a little. In there, I call it their first comeback album, since they were re-asserting themselves after Burton's death.

I vaguely remember reading something in the past few years where Hetfield said that his political views changed while on the Justice or Black Album tours, as a result of travelling around America so much and learning how people lived outside of California or something? I'll try to dig it up.

I interviewed him for 30 mins in 1997, and got in a question about his about face re: politics. the black album has "Don't tread on me" which I said to him was unmistakably a pro-Gulf war sentiment. He denied this somewhat unconvincingly, but went on to say that his travels around the world made him appreciate what he understood as American values, and that his lyrics afterwards were about "what you feel inside" (paraphrasing here) and no longer the result of watching CNN with Lars and saying lets be topical. So the band's orientation initially was to be anti-authoritarian in the manner of many of the non metal bands they liked, but clearly this was posturing on his part: when he became an older guy, late 20s-mid 30s, he reverted to the quasi-Nugent views that he probly would have had were he never to have heard Crass or Anti-Nowhere League.

Also, he got rich.

Lars is the cool one, confirmed yet again

But Echobrain remains ... the future.

So the band's orientation initially was to be anti-authoritarian in the manner of many of the non metal bands they liked, but clearly this was posturing on his part: when he became an older guy, late 20s-mid 30s, he reverted to the quasi-Nugent views that he probly would have had were he never to have heard Crass or Anti-Nowhere League.

I don't think it's fair to call it "posturing." Hetfield grew up in Downey, California, an aerospace industry town, and his parents were Christian Scientists, so he rebelled against all of that pretty hard when he was growing up, as one does. But as he got older, and richer, he got more conservative, which happens to about 75% of human beings. Some of it's not even "conservatism" in the red/blue Republican-Democrat sense, it's just old-guy thinking.

Many xxps - The lack of bass never bothered me on this album, but there are these annoying little oomph sounds in the negative space between two guitar notes that I find very irritating. It's very clear right after the intro of the title track, as soon as the drums kick in, but once you hear it, it's all over the record. Anyway, excited for the rough mixes.

I get the impression Hetfield's lyrics on the thrash albums were written to provide an atmospheric context to the music rather than because the issues massively converned him. In a way I think his songwriting's grown more personal as it's got worse.

I could watch Kirk Hammett open boxes all day.

the result of watching CNN with Lars

I mean, this would probably make me go MAGA too.

That may have been what I was thinking of. Thank you, veronica.

man I doubt very much that what you read was my shit. Was for Timeout NY in 1997, which is not archived online. But he has said as much very widely.

thread has sent me to listen to Hardwired for the first time…four songs in, I got bored with the album per se and went to the Dio/Rainbow, Maiden and Deep Purple covers. Gotta say that I liked mid 90s Metallica just fine ("the Unforgiven II" is one of my favorite things they ever done) and don't think much of 00s material.

The ultimate in vanity
Exploiting their supremacy
Obama's birth certificate's fake
I can't believe, I can't believe the price
He paid

Your best friend is dead
You know there’s not an answer in Budweiser
What do you do?

the drums on this record kick ass

Yes they do!

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the songs or the performances but the record definitely could’ve sounded better.

no it couldn't!

there's no bass tho

also drums sound kind of funny

To ease my misgivings over the bass/other misc. issues, I like to think of AJFA as sonically one big rhythm guitar

i mean i like it!

I enjoy this album very much

anybody have a parametric equalizer hooked up to their stereo?

Lars on fire

Helluva way to deal with Jaymz's recent news

Shortest Straw ftw

This album

Anyone complain about the bass sound above?

What bass sound?

Oh wow, they actually played my favorite song once, in its entirety, and did it justice (lol): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF5OHUXamFQ

Which is the one that was supposedly "unplayable," due to punch-ins and overdubs and stuff?

I know it's traditionally metal and all, but I guess James still gets a pass for the Iron Cross?

That's Dyer's Eve. They've now played it, with Lars gutting the drum part.

XPS

Iron crosses have a long history in California Biker/Surfer/Hot Rod culture. One of the times he cleaned up, Hetfield really got into Hot Rods, which I imagine informed both the cross and pinstriping on his guitar.

https://www.hotrodders.com/forum/maltese-cross-14960.html

Just searched "Dyer's Eve demo" on youtube on a hunch, and there you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXtSwgCEktE

See, Lars used to be able to play that ridiculously fast & long double bass part in the verse even without punch-ins.

But the Maltese cross is not the Iron Cross. That's an Iron Cross, which is associated afaik just with Germany. Right?

(Not picking a fight with James, who already has a history of being associated with or saying questionable stuff about a bunch of bad shit.)

I remember hearing this version on a bootleg in a used CD store listening station when I was a kid, and realizing that the best riffs are the actually the ones under the solos (maybe because James doesn't have to sing, or even lock in with another rhythm guitarist): https://youtu.be/WAfcp54co4M?t=257

I don't hear any double bass on that demo in the verse? Sounds like a simplified drum beat compared to the studio recording? Unless that was the joke...

Or it could be the shittiness of the recording and my waning hearing. I hear something approximating double bass but it's faint

I hear something approximating double bass but it's faint

That's our Lars ....

;)

I'm on headphones and can definitely hear it throughout (not a lot of attack on that demo recording), and his time is super tight compared to most live shows.

Lars rules

Lars is like Ringo: love him or not, I can't imagine anyone else in his place.

Or I guess I can imagine it, but wouldn't want it.

Protect Lars

Imagine being in your 50s and having legions of lunkheads caring about your double kick skills

Seriously, not least because all the young guns trigger anyway.

My god the instrumental section beginning four minutes into Eye of the Beholder is tight.

yeah that's my fav part of the song

i listened to that tune a lot during Trump's inauguration week lol

Great track.

the drums on “harvester of sorrow” are so fucking good

Best Metallica album. Fuck bass.

otm

The way that it's mixed, there are enough bass frequencies between the drums and rhythm guitars. This isn't to say that Jason wasn't shafted or that, if recorded differently with his parts higher in the mix, Justice could have been a different and possibly even better album. Regardless, it's a first-class record that achieved what it set out to do.

No one's listening to (this kind of) metal for the low-end rumble of the bass. Even Cliff, he often seemed to be playing fuzzed out co-lead that blended in with the guitars. I assume Jason isn't doing much different. I think the general thinness of the whole recording is pretty beneficial, because god knows how bad it would have sounded had they brick-walled everything like they did later.

Master of Puppets has great songs but when I listen to it now I just think about how much better it would sound recorded/mixed like AJFH

In my old age, I've mellowed my AJFA bass opinions. They're more in line with peace's and Josh's posts – yeah, there's no bass there, but it still fukkin jams.

I disagree with you, man alive. I do think that Masters sounds richer, fuller, thicker. Even that razor-sharp sheen at the end of The Thing That Should Be is, shall we say, more loaded than any similar riffs on AJFA.

Justice still sounds tinny in a lot of places, and my memories of it from a cassette tape that likely had too much tape inside it, it didn't sound great. CDs didn't help it much either.

BUT – despite all that – it's still a classic album.

the remastered albums feature Cliff loud and clearly, and he added a ton. granted, a lot of the songs, he was just doubling, but he's playing a unique, pulsing bassline on "Jump in the Fire", there's the intro to "For Whom the Bell Tolls", there's his work in Orion, there are the swells that open "Damage Inc", like.....people were listening to Cliff!

MoP still has that '80s reverb-y snare sound (and it's a great sounding classic album, don't get me wrong), but I think of the sound of AJFA as chrome-plated, or like a modernist sculpture.

Neanderthal otm, losing Cliff meant losing a creative force. Just so happened that Jamz and Larz were firing on all cylinders at that point, which made up for it

Oh, for sure, Cliff was an unusual talent, doubly unusual in that he was probably the biggest and brightest musical star of that era of Metallica. I mean, still not sure people were necessarily listening to Metallica *for* Cliff, other than "Orion," but he definitely added a lot (though again, kinda like a third guitarist). But clearly what he added wasn't 100% essential, because " ... And Justice" rules. The band didn't begin to decline until Lars and James shifted gears.

Until they stopped watching CNN together.

Cliff factored a lot more into the writing than Jason did.

he had 9 co-writing credits on RTL/MOP, even had one on "To Live is to Die" on AJFA.

He had 11 total across all albums (including "Anesthesia").

Jason had 3 total across his entire Metallica career.

I've never listened to the riff tracks discs that came with the boxed set. Are there Cliff riff tracks?

no, but there's a pinup calendar with him shirtless

Cliff's rack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kqTcLwUYj8

https://i.imgur.com/FfpCe3A.png

I can't accept this album with bass, it feels like less of a cold, steel sculpture.

I played bass on "One" in my band in high-school, I had to learn the basslines from a transcription book because I couldn't hear them even reading the sheet music. I wonder now if they just made the basslines up (or maybe studied Jason's hands in concert).

they had a cow interpret the frequencies

The only place on the album it's audible to me is the intro to "Eye of the Beholder".

To live is to jason

I hit the final stage of Acceptance with the bass on this album long ago.

It is what it is, and at this point, it's like complaining about the lack of bass on "When Doves Cry".

what's weird about this album for me specifically is that when I was a kid I had a copied cassette version of this album, which was copied from another copied cassette, so I always thought it sounded kind of weird and not very dynamic, but always assumed that's what happened when you listened to a cassette that was a copy of a copy. Then 10 years later as an adult, I randomly buy this album on CD when stumbling upon it in a used CD store and I put it on thinking I would finally hear this album the way it's supposed to sound and it sounds basically the same as my cassette copy.

Still my most listened to Metallica album by far, that shitty cassette copy got a lot of plays.

Today my mind was blown by this fact from a nerdy audio engineering video - the drums on Justice and on the black album were recorded in the same room.

(different place in the room, different engineers of course)

Listening to this album again now. It rules.

So so great. The Black Album otoh is one of those albums I keep trying to enjoy but can’t get into (or even get all the way through).

Yeah, the Black Album...I can get through the first 3 tracks, track 5, and track 7. But why would I?

The Black album is one of those albums where whenever I hear one of the songs in isolation I think it's pretty good, but all the songs together on an album doesn't work

It was my gateway drug. Songs I can still stand to hear:

Sad but True
Holier than Thou
Through the Never
The God That Failed
The Struggle Within

Through the Never is a sweet deep cut

Struggle Within could have fit on Justice (if it were four minutes longer with a long bridge in a different tempo, obviously).

xpost Through the Never is the only one I really like to listen to anymore other than maybe Unforgiven, the others barely scan as songs anymore as they're so omnipresent.

oh I guess I love "Holier Than Thou", even if it occasionally feels like Metallica by way of GNR.

tell ya though, the album really overrelies on its polish, like...a lot of the songs sound terrible live. I went to see Metallica at Rockville where they did two sets on two nights and one night, it was just The Black Album back to front and it was so boring I left early.

and of course missed "Damage Inc" in the encore. dammit.

Not to keep sullying the AJFA thread talking about the black album, but the way they play the chorus of Sad But True live is so funny to me. Instead of playing "you know it's" as a triplet they do it as 8th notes, so it turns it into this weird bar of 9/8 (plus another 2 beats). It's so dumb-smart (or smart-dumb), when you're used to the album version it sounds like time slowing down. Very indicative of their modular, "whatever works" approach to meter that makes them them.

things I love about AJFA
- the guitar sound
- the density of riffs
- the beautiful melodies
- the weird Bruegel-esque band portrait in the liner notes
- two songs over 9 minutes long

I guess it’s more of an ukiyo-e thing, the one with the gavel

Jordan I've noticed that weird alteration to Sad But True, it just absolutely fucks with my brain because it sounds wrong.

I feel like James also made a minor alteration in the fingering for "Call of Ktulu" live in all performances of the song since like 1999, it sounds similar enough that most don't notice but involves much less frequent finger movements.

I tried to seek out other thrash like AJFA during the pandemic, and largely arrived at Evile, mid-period Heathen, and 90s Artillery, and even then it's not quite what they were doing.

Quoting myself from five years ago: "The lack of bass never bothered me on this album, but there are these annoying oomph sounds in the negative space between two guitar notes that I find very irritating."

Is no one else bothered by this? I returned my first CD copy because of these noises, only to discover they were part of the record. Just listen to Blackened from 2:36 to 3:05, but it's everywhere. I want to hear riffs but I only hear oomph.

I just found out that I can get rid of those noises by filtering out everything around 150 Hz. Such an improvement!

I do know when I played it through my computer speakers in high school, the speakers frequently made a noise that sounded like objects were falling over in the cabinet under them, a very 'rumbly' sound, which might be the same thing?

listening to it now and I can definitely hear the oomph sounds, I'd never noticed before, possibly just naturally filtered out by the copying process on my cassette copy of a copy which I had as a kid and which is still what I mentally hear when I think of this album.

Now I think I'm going to end up with a headache if I listen to this full album, so weird, thanks a lot ArchCarrier

Maybe it's because it's always been a headphone album for me, but I'm not hearing what you guys are hearing (on Tidal through my laptop, good Sony headphones). I hear bass in the mix, but that's it. It's not even, like, Jlin levels of bass. Just some low end, exactly what people always used to bitch wasn't there!

I've noticed that thing with the palm-muted guitars on occasion, only on certain systems though (like cranked through the car on an old ipod). I think it's because they really pushed the lows on the guitars, but they're really these low mid frequencies that can sound weird on certain speakers, if your system is also emphasizing those frequencies.

yeah, I tried again on headphones and it wasn't there so I guess it's just these speakers plugged into my computer

The God That Failed is the Black Album song I find popping into my head the most these days.

the weirdest one to me is "My Friend of Misery".

the verse feels like heavy metal gone emo, whereas the chorus feels like hair metal with the big slick chorus and its harmonies. then it has the closest thing to an old school Metallica harmonized lead break on it towards the end.

Production on black album is so boring/ middle of the road, I think that’s the problem

“Sad but true” at 1.25x with ajfa production ftw

I was at the Monsters of Rock festival in 1988 when Metallica previewed this album, only playing a couple of songs from it, tentatively, and asking the crowd what they thought