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.
― chap, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 15:20 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Pleasant Plains, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 15:23 (fifteen years ago) link
Shit, forget Lynott, he's not even Mustaine. But lyrics aren't what I'm looking for when I throw on Metallica.
― Bill Magill, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 18:04 (fifteen years ago) link
Yeah, closest I've gotten to caring about Metallica lyrics (for better or worse) is liking the part where he goes "...damageincorporated".
― contenderizer, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 18:24 (fifteen years ago) link
Creeping Death is kind of cool
― Bill Magill, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 18:28 (fifteen years ago) link
don't fuck with razorback
― Pleasant Plains, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 18:31 (fifteen years ago) link
fuck it all and fucking no regrets
― latebloomer, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 18:31 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― A. Begrand, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 18:40 (fifteen years ago) link
are they doing a vinyl reissue of this? i wonder if the remaster and being on vinyl would give it a little more bottom?
― M@tt He1ges0n, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 19:44 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― res, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 22:36 (fifteen years ago) link
yeah i think thats right
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 22:43 (fifteen years ago) link
AND JASON FOR ALL! YOU PEOPLE, SHEESH!
― Pleasant Plains, Thursday, 31 July 2008 03:47 (fifteen years ago) link
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....
― Bo Jackson Overdrive, Thursday, 31 July 2008 03:54 (fifteen years ago) link
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?
― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Thursday, 31 July 2008 05:22 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Jordan, Thursday, 31 July 2008 14:46 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Myonga Vön Bontee, Thursday, 31 July 2008 16:08 (fifteen years ago) link
i didn't name it!
― res, Thursday, 31 July 2008 18:06 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― res, Thursday, 31 July 2008 18:09 (fifteen years ago) link
All this I cannot bear to witness.
― Pleasant Plains, Thursday, 31 July 2008 18:13 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― res, Thursday, 31 July 2008 18:40 (fifteen years ago) link
didn't Cliff steal the 'lyrics' from To Live is to Die from some sci fi movie or something
― Bo Jackson Overdrive, Friday, 1 August 2008 02:45 (fifteen years ago) link
It was a speech by Merlin from Excalibur!
― VAG... NI... HITLER (Leee), Sunday, 29 March 2009 00:41 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― rhythm fixated member (chap), Sunday, 4 July 2010 02:47 (thirteen years ago) link
this album is grate! Legend of Zelda metal!!!
― is this the end of zombie Shakespeare? (Drugs A. Money), Sunday, 4 July 2010 03:03 (thirteen years ago) link
production's a little bit eh but this album forever imo \m/ O_O \m/
― ksh, Sunday, 4 July 2010 03:08 (thirteen years ago) link
I am my own best friend
― calstars, Sunday, 4 July 2010 03:14 (thirteen years ago) link
that's a great record too
― ksh, Sunday, 4 July 2010 03:18 (thirteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnatnzxxtFE
― Duke, Sunday, 4 July 2010 20:17 (thirteen years ago) link
Some guy has done his own re-mix (upping Jason's bass) using the Rockband game....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAvwod7BBK0
― Duke, Sunday, 4 July 2010 20:21 (thirteen years ago) link
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.
― Born In A Test Tube, Raised In A Cage (unperson), Sunday, 4 July 2010 20:37 (thirteen years ago) link
total classic this album. oh how the mighty have fallen
― charlie h, Sunday, 20 February 2011 11:14 (thirteen years ago) link
The thin sound is half the point. Yeah, the record's like an icey transmission from the wastelands.
― kkvgz, Sunday, 20 February 2011 13:54 (thirteen years ago) link
Yeah, thin but effective. And as with so much metal, who really needs to hear the bass?
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 20 February 2011 14:00 (thirteen years ago) link
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.
― angel of debt!!! monarch to the kingdom of the Fed... (San Te), Sunday, 20 February 2011 16:35 (thirteen years ago) link
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.
― Inevitable stupid dubstep mix (chap), Sunday, 20 February 2011 16:38 (thirteen years ago) link
"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.
― angel of debt!!! monarch to the kingdom of the Fed... (San Te), Sunday, 20 February 2011 16:40 (thirteen years ago) link
harvester of sorrow is actually one of the tracks i liked
― Algerian Goalkeeper, Sunday, 20 February 2011 16:51 (thirteen years ago) link
This might actually be my favourite Metallica album by now.
― Siegbran, Sunday, 20 February 2011 16:54 (thirteen years ago) link
Second to MoP for me.
― Inevitable stupid dubstep mix (chap), Sunday, 20 February 2011 16:55 (thirteen years ago) link
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.
― angel of debt!!! monarch to the kingdom of the Fed... (San Te), Sunday, 20 February 2011 17:09 (thirteen years ago) link
sometimes RTL jumps to number one. the title track is just....wau
RTL for me personally
― Algerian Goalkeeper, Sunday, 20 February 2011 17:13 (thirteen years ago) link
30th anniversary edition on its way
― Duke, Thursday, 6 September 2018 19:55 (five years ago) link
https://youtu.be/MqL04r775p4
― Duke, Thursday, 6 September 2018 19:57 (five years ago) link
"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."
― Duke, Thursday, 6 September 2018 20:00 (five years ago) link
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.
― The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums (Chinaski), Thursday, 6 September 2018 20:03 (five years ago) link
Album's great. Master of Puppets boxed set was awesome (once).
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 6 September 2018 20:38 (five years ago) link
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
― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 6 September 2018 20:59 (five years ago) link
Alternating beat syncopation on Blackened gets me every time
― calstars, Thursday, 6 September 2018 21:02 (five years ago) link
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)
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 6 September 2018 21:18 (five years ago) link
Until they stopped watching CNN together.
― peace, man, Tuesday, 26 July 2022 15:26 (one year ago) link
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.
― We were clothed, except for Caan, who was naked. Don't know why. (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 26 July 2022 15:30 (one year ago) link
I've never listened to the riff tracks discs that came with the boxed set. Are there Cliff riff tracks?
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 26 July 2022 15:33 (one year ago) link
no, but there's a pinup calendar with him shirtless
― We were clothed, except for Caan, who was naked. Don't know why. (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 26 July 2022 15:36 (one year ago) link
Cliff's rack.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 26 July 2022 15:41 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kqTcLwUYj8
― calstars, Monday, 20 February 2023 22:46 (one year ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/FfpCe3A.png
― calstars, Monday, 20 February 2023 22:48 (one year ago) link
I can't accept this album with bass, it feels like less of a cold, steel sculpture.
― change display name (Jordan), Monday, 20 February 2023 22:56 (one year ago) link
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).
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 20 February 2023 23:33 (one year ago) link
they had a cow interpret the frequencies
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Monday, 20 February 2023 23:38 (one year ago) link
The only place on the album it's audible to me is the intro to "Eye of the Beholder".
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 20 February 2023 23:39 (one year ago) link
To live is to jason
― calstars, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 00:00 (one year ago) link
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".
― pplains, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 16:16 (one year ago) link
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.
― silverfish, Tuesday, 21 February 2023 16:55 (one year ago) link