Metallica
S&M
The Band: James Hetfield- rhythm guitar, lead vocals
Kirk Hammet- lead guitar, back up vocals
Jason Newsted- bass guitar, back up vocals
Lars Ulrich- drums
Metallica are often referred to as one of the greatest metal bands of all time. Why? Well, they were one of the bands that pioneered thrash metal. They’ve put out more than their share of successful metal albums such as “Kill Em All”, “Ride The Lightning”, “Master Of Puppets”, “And Justice For All” and “Metallica (The Black Album)”. One of the greatest lead guitarists of all time (Kirk Hammet) is a member of the band. They’re lead by front man James Hetfield who I consider to be one of the greatest rhythm guitarists of all time. They have more than adequate bass and drums. They’ve also sold millions of albums world wide. This particular album is a compilation of some of Metallica’s greatest works. But not only is it a compilation of their best songs, they also combined these tracks with a symphony orchestra. Hence the name S&M (S&M= symphony and Metallica). Personally I loved this combination. It was unique, like putting peanut butter on a hotdog, which is actually really good by the way. I sort of invented it. Anyways, getting back on topic the orchestra gave the album sort of an interesting atmosphere. It added to the sorrowful, harmonic feel of the ballads and gave the heavier tracks a really eerie feel. I enjoyed this because I already loved nearly all of these songs and then they made them better. It gave me sort of having my cake and eating it too sort of feeling.
Now I’d like to tell ya’ll about what was happening in Metallica’s career at this point in time. The year is 1999 and Metallica are in dyer strains. After releasing their S/T they had released Load and ReLoad. Fans had begun to turn on them because of the change in sound from metal to hard rock. They were utterly infuriated calling Metallica sell outs and traitors. After that they managed to by themselves some time by putting out “Garage Inc.”, which was a cover album. After GI was only moderately successful the band began to quarrel amongst themselves. Although, they did manage to put their differences aside for a little while and try and think of what to do next. They didn’t really want to risk putting out an album of new material after their previous, rather unsuccessful albums. So, they thought why not make an album with an orchestra. When I think about I’m actually not to happy about this decision. It was kind of a dumb thing to do, especially after they had just put out a cover album. The fans deserved new material. Now, don’t get me wrong I don’t really like the decision, but I love the album. Anywho, after they released this album their quarrels resurfaced and Jason Newsted ending up leaving the band. He was eventually replaced by Rob Trujillo. In between the two bassists Bob Rock filled in, although I don’t think he was ever actually dubbed part of the band.
This album has tracks on it from many different points in Metallica’s career, so it had somewhat of a range of feels to it. Thus a variety of moods come from it. Some tracks were sort of depressing, but only mildly. Others were sort of eerie and frightening at times. A good example of the softer, more depressing tracks would be “Nothing Else Matters” and “Until It Sleeps”. These tracks were perfect for an orchestra due to their tender nature. The stringed instruments (violin, cello etc.) blended perfectly with the music, deepening their already gloomy sound. These tracks are good to listen to when you’re in sort of a down mood, for whatever reason. It’s definitely not something you listen to, to attempt to lift your spirits, but it will sooth your somewhat rocky mood. Then there were the heavier more eerie tracks I mentioned. A good example of these would be “Master Of Puppets” and “Battery”. These tracks are from early in Metallica’s career, so naturally they’re a lot more thrashy, distorted and violent than the tracks I mentioned a few moments ago. The orchestra made these tracks somewhat more frightening. Well, not frightening as in they actually scare you, more like they give you chills. Especially in “Battery”, the intro in that one gives me chills every time. I did however, find the orchestra sort of unnecessary for the heavier tracks. While it gave them a new sort of bone chilling perspective, it didn’t really make them better in any way. Seemed sort of pointless to me, but meh they were good none the less. The heavier tracks are good to listen to when you need to get pumped up for something, when you’re going for a drive, basically just when you’re in a good energetic mood.
Aside from the orchestra the bands instrumentals for this album were near flawless. Also, because this album has a range of songs from different points in Metallica’s career, there are a few different arrays of styles on here. There’s a good portion of their older music, which brings the album a good thrashy feel. There’s some material from “The Black Album”, which is more general metal. Then there’s some material from Load and ReLoad, which is more hard rock. I rather enjoyed this contrast of styles. It kept the album from getting boring. No matter what time period it was from the guitar was great. The rhythm guitar was spectacular. There were lots of great fast power chorded riffs from the earlier days. I’m usually not a huge fan of songs that are mainly composed by power chords, but thanks to the speed of the songs, not too mention the orchestra it didn’t get to me in the least. The rhythm guitar work from their later material was good as well. I enjoyed the experimentation with drop C and D tuning from the material from Load and ReLoad. There was lots of splendid riffage whether it was clean toned like in “One” or “The Call Of The Ktulu” or whether it was heavier like in “The Thing That Should Not Be” or “Sad But True”. There were lots of outstanding bridges and interludes in several tracks as well. But what I enjoyed most about the album would have to be the solos. I rather enjoyed comparing the different styles of soloing that Metallica have gone through. In their earlier work the solos are very thrashy and mostly based on pentatonic scales. A lot of the solos from The Black Album are slower and more bend orientated giving them a more emotional feel. The solos for Load/ReLoad seemed to be more FX orientated. A lot more wah along with other FX were used in a lot of them.
I enjoyed looking at the bass for this album because it was kind of fun to compare Jason and Cliff. Personally I prefer Cliff, mainly because he finger picked, as opposed to using a pick. You just can’t get the same sound with a pick. Regardless the bass from any time period was rather well written. Thankfully there was only one song on the album from “And Justice For all” because while the bass from that was adequately written it was also very hard to here. The bass sort of varied throughout the album. Some tracks it mainly played root notes of what the guitar was playing, in others it forged it’s own path and played something completely different. I would’ve liked to see some tracks like “My Friend Of Misery” or “The God That Failed” on here because of their excellent bass intros. It seemed that bass sort of lacked it’s won voice on this album. It didn’t get much time to go off on it’s own, as it spent most of it’s time being drowned out by the guitar. Now don’t get me wrong you could here it pretty well for most of the album, but it never really had to many points where it was just the bass. With the exception of little things, like the intro to “For Whom The Bell Tolls”. Overall the bass was marvelous, but like I said they could’ve put a little more focus on it.
Lars’s style of drumming hasn’t changed too much over the span of Metallica’s career. Well actually it changed quite a bit on “St. Anger”, but this album was made before it, so it doesn’t count. I find Lars uses his snare a tad too much. Now, I know the snare is one of the primary drums and is supposed to use a lot, but he uses it quite a bit even taking that into consideration. His fixation with his snare seems to be keeping him from experimenting too much, like with some roll beats and things of that sort. Not to say that he doesn’t use
any roll beats or fills. There’s a hefty portion of them. If you want an example listen closely in between verses and choruses, in most tracks he throws something in there. He’s also not shy about using his cymbals. I find he often uses them along with the snare instead of the snare and high-hats like most drummers. Although he does use the basic simple beat (high-hat+snare) quite a bit too. He did a good job staying in time, but he doesn’t deserve too much credit for that, as it is expected. Overall the drums would’ve been a bit more complex but I thought they were still pretty great.
Overall Rating: 4.5/5
Pros: Orchestra
Solid instrumentally otherwise
Decent job with the vocals
Cons: Some songs that should’ve been on here weren’t
This album isn’t really a necessity. If you already have all of Metallica’s other albums you might not want to get this. It’s pretty much what you already have but with orchestra and two new songs “No Lead Clover” and “Minus Human”. Unless of course you’re a hardcore fan and want to collect all Metallica’s albums. Then get this, there’s nothing too new about it, but it’s a good listen none the less. I particularly enjoyed because I’m actually a fan of classical music, so it was nice to here that and metal combine. The two do make sort of a hodgepodge but they’re still pretty great. The production was some of the best to ever grace a Metallica album actually. Until next time keep your stick on the ice.
Metallicaman
