Review Summary: Y'know, they were kinda cool once...
Close the door and crank back the time machine, past
“I am the table!’, past “I would say…
delete that”, past Napster, the Loads, Bob Rock and those missing basslines. When you step out, it’s 1987, Metallica has finished the Puppets tour and the world of metal is still reeling and healing from the news of Cliff Burton’s death. It’s the Reagan years, and sparse tidbits from MTV and the pages of import metal magazines are only sources to scour for news on metal’s true antiheroes. All they’ve done is release one quality record after another, socially awkward dirtbag deities in torn denim, somehow making a mockery of the makeup-doused, big-haired buffoons prancing about on the music channels. Stark, ugly, serious, exciting – there’s a tangible sense of concern in metal circles that they may not be able to continue. Is the new bass player working out? Is he any good? These guys could go the route of Zeppelin after Bonzo’s death and nobody would be surprised.
By early summer, a new EP was everywhere, “The $5.98 EP, Garage Days Re-Revisited”. It was the first of several emancipations for Metallica proving to all the world that they would be re-convening after all. While most of us were ready to fork over a month’s salary to hear new Metallica recordings, these everymen, these champions of the people even go as far as to dictate the price of the record (wow!), the sticker on the LP reading - Do not pay more! Even the CD is only $9.98! If I knew anyone who had a CD player, I’d buy one of those too.
The band is absolutely ***-hot, the whole vibe of the recordings relaxed but incredibly tight. Drums and bass are full of punch, mids slightly scooped , the band loose, buzzed, goofing around between songs. Liner notes full of good humor, James’ handwritten note to fans describing the ‘don’t take it seriously’ attitude of the recording and still using phrases like “it hella sucked!” – hey, it was ’87.
Not only are these some of the best-
sounding Metallica recordings of the period, the band found a way to drag 5 very cool bands to the forefront of every metalhead’s attention. Personally, I didn’t know Holocaust from Adam in 1987, had barely heard a thing from Killing Joke and Budgie may as well have been Captain and Tennille. But in their seemingly bottomless well of coolness, the Frisco boys had dropped six songs that everyone needed to hear. That glorious fake Holocaust live album and Budgie’s debut became fast favorites in the years that followed.
Another year, another Diamond Head cover, but this pulse-quickening version of “Helpless” sounds like a million bucks, Lars is all over the place but it’s obvious they just stuck a mike in front of the kit and let it rip. Sean Harris is 100 times the singer Hetfield will ever be, but those crunching chords and James' anthemic crowing,
“Cannot squeeze the life from me!” is like a call to arms for slackers age 15-55, and there’s even a few moments of bass noodling from the new guy. “The Small Hours” is kinda hissy and weird but that riff is like wading through sonic tar, basslines up high in the mix. The flangey vocal effect on Hetfield’s voice in “The Wait” recalls the RTL recordings, the lurching pace of this version warmer than KJ’s automatonlike pulse. The Budgie cover pushes Newsted to the forefront in several moments of plank-walking tension, and The Misfits songs – c’mon…ear candy for even the most cynical of fans. Great cover choices all.
The EP is a sentimental relic from an era when Metallica were a step ahead of everyone, passports to megastardom ready to be stamped, and the last album that was recorded and released in such a breezy, spontaneous fashion. Still highly enjoyable to observe the raw power of this band before the era of production nitpicking would ensue.
