Post by Cupcake Avenger on Jul 18, 2005 16:07:51 GMT -5
And JUstice For All is Metallica's most musically technical album, with guitar-solos, riff-changes, complex intros/outros a-plenty. Lyrically it tells of a wasted and dark society that we as humans must live in. Songs such as "One" (limbless soldier who has to still live), "Blackened" ("death of mother earth/never a rebirth"), and "And Justice for All" (rant against U.S. justice system) epitomize the overall feel of this album very well.
From a metal point of view, this is easily Metallica's heaviest album. However, unlike their previous efforts, Justice is not heavily laden with thrash metal tracks. Most of the songs on the record are slow, brooding, angry hard rock numbers, filled with spiteful lyrics.
The thrash-metal pioneers' fourth effort has more complex song strutures than any of their previous albums, which explains the fact that the shortest song is "Dyer's Eve" at 5:12 and the longest is "To Live is to Die" at 9:48. The average songlength is probably somewhere around seven minutes.
Metallica's fourth album also features their most sophisticated instrumental, "To Live is To Die", sort of an ode to their fallen bassist, Cliff Burton, who wrote the spoken word section of the song before he died in a bus accident. If you want to call Bon Jovi and Van Halen songs power ballads, then go right ahead. If you want a ballad that is actually powerful, then go for "To Live is To Die". It really is wonderful when music can speak for itself and a song can be a tear-jerker without having any sung words to it. It opens up with an acoustic guitar playing a pretty tune, and then fades out to a heavy metal riff. The rest of the song is primarily metal-based, but there is an extremely beautiful interlude in the middle featuring violins, non-distorted guitar, and a pretty, sorrowful riff being played.
"To Live is to Die" is an excellent song, however, the masterpiece of the album is "One". It begins with one of the best guitar solos ever concieved, played by a near-acoustic undistorted guitar, with a strong feeling of pain to it. Once the lyrics begin, they are filled with just as much agony as the solo that precedes them. "I can't remember anything/can't tell if this is real or dream/deep down inside I feel the scream/this terrible silence stops me" laments James Hetfield in a melodic and yet somehow menacing vocal tone. "Hold my breath as I wish for death/please god wake me" makes up the short but intense chorus of "One". The song towards the end turns into a thrash ballad, with two paragraphs of misery described in Hetfield's rough, angry scream.
"Harvester of Sorrow" is anotherm highpoint of the album, featuring a great opening riff, and very well-written lyrics about a suburban man driven to the edge. "My life suffocates/planting seeds of hate/I've loved, turned to hate/dropped far beyond my fate/I give, you take/this life that I forsake/been cheated of my youth/you turned this lie to truth" makes up the first verse, along with the bridge "Anger, misery/you'll suffer unto me". One of the heaviest songs on And Justice for All but also easily one of the best.
The only lowpoint of And Justice for All is the anti-censorship rant "Eye of the Beholder". Mainly because the verses are so good and then the chorus just musically doesn't flow at all with them, and also because the chorus's lyrics aren't all that well-written. "Independance limited/freedom of choice is made for you my friend/freedom of speech is words that they will bend/freedom with their exception." No clever metaphors. No interesting poetic phrases like in "One". Instead Hetfield decides just to go for flat-out explanation, which is kind of boring to me. A much better anti-government track on the album is "The Shortest Straw", which actually uses catchy phrases and metaphors and has a good verse AND chorus.
However, "Eye of the Beholder" isn't bad enough to bring the whole album down with it, and so And Justice for All still towers and a hateful, angry, searing metal masterpiece.
From a metal point of view, this is easily Metallica's heaviest album. However, unlike their previous efforts, Justice is not heavily laden with thrash metal tracks. Most of the songs on the record are slow, brooding, angry hard rock numbers, filled with spiteful lyrics.
The thrash-metal pioneers' fourth effort has more complex song strutures than any of their previous albums, which explains the fact that the shortest song is "Dyer's Eve" at 5:12 and the longest is "To Live is to Die" at 9:48. The average songlength is probably somewhere around seven minutes.
Metallica's fourth album also features their most sophisticated instrumental, "To Live is To Die", sort of an ode to their fallen bassist, Cliff Burton, who wrote the spoken word section of the song before he died in a bus accident. If you want to call Bon Jovi and Van Halen songs power ballads, then go right ahead. If you want a ballad that is actually powerful, then go for "To Live is To Die". It really is wonderful when music can speak for itself and a song can be a tear-jerker without having any sung words to it. It opens up with an acoustic guitar playing a pretty tune, and then fades out to a heavy metal riff. The rest of the song is primarily metal-based, but there is an extremely beautiful interlude in the middle featuring violins, non-distorted guitar, and a pretty, sorrowful riff being played.
"To Live is to Die" is an excellent song, however, the masterpiece of the album is "One". It begins with one of the best guitar solos ever concieved, played by a near-acoustic undistorted guitar, with a strong feeling of pain to it. Once the lyrics begin, they are filled with just as much agony as the solo that precedes them. "I can't remember anything/can't tell if this is real or dream/deep down inside I feel the scream/this terrible silence stops me" laments James Hetfield in a melodic and yet somehow menacing vocal tone. "Hold my breath as I wish for death/please god wake me" makes up the short but intense chorus of "One". The song towards the end turns into a thrash ballad, with two paragraphs of misery described in Hetfield's rough, angry scream.
"Harvester of Sorrow" is anotherm highpoint of the album, featuring a great opening riff, and very well-written lyrics about a suburban man driven to the edge. "My life suffocates/planting seeds of hate/I've loved, turned to hate/dropped far beyond my fate/I give, you take/this life that I forsake/been cheated of my youth/you turned this lie to truth" makes up the first verse, along with the bridge "Anger, misery/you'll suffer unto me". One of the heaviest songs on And Justice for All but also easily one of the best.
The only lowpoint of And Justice for All is the anti-censorship rant "Eye of the Beholder". Mainly because the verses are so good and then the chorus just musically doesn't flow at all with them, and also because the chorus's lyrics aren't all that well-written. "Independance limited/freedom of choice is made for you my friend/freedom of speech is words that they will bend/freedom with their exception." No clever metaphors. No interesting poetic phrases like in "One". Instead Hetfield decides just to go for flat-out explanation, which is kind of boring to me. A much better anti-government track on the album is "The Shortest Straw", which actually uses catchy phrases and metaphors and has a good verse AND chorus.
However, "Eye of the Beholder" isn't bad enough to bring the whole album down with it, and so And Justice for All still towers and a hateful, angry, searing metal masterpiece.
