Review Summary: GIVE ME FUE GIVE ME FAI GIVE ME DABAJABAZA
Metallica is a band with many high and low points throughout their career. Undisputedly the most mainstream metal band of all time, Metallica have brought out classics like Ride the Lightning and absolute trainwrecks like Lulu. The band have committed many sins over their near four decades in the music business, such as being complete fucking tools about downloading mp3's and trying to single handedly shut down the internet. Not to mention the entire St. Anger documentary where we get to see James Hetfield whine like a baby and the entire band looked like 40 year old geeks with the mental capacity of 12 year olds. Needless to say that Metallica should have hired better PR since at one point their image was so bad that metal heads were just writing off their albums as shit before even listening to them. While Metallica has deserved a lot of the hate they get, Reload is one of their most unfairly disliked albums. The metal community has rejected Reload, but let's not kid ourselves its incredibly underrated and a top 5 Metallica project.
Load was released in 1996 and was a complete shift in direction for the band. Neckbeards and snobbish music critics cried out in anger that the band members all got haircuts and actually tried to reinvent themselves instead of churning out their 28th trash album in a row. Lord forgive Metallica for trying to experiment and not just settling for being a nostalgia act. Admittedly, Load was hit or miss, but on the other hand, the sequel Reload was a massive improvement as Metallica delivered a heavier, aggressive sequel. Haters will call it Load B-Sides but the material on Reload is miles better than Load. Reload is the Empire Strikes Back to Load's A New Hope.
The album kicks off with "Fuel", which is is easily Metallica's most underappreciated song in their catalogue. This song completely dominated the late 90's/early 2000's. It's a simple, yet thrilling and intense hype anthem with a strong guitar solo. Old school NASCAR fans will have a bit of nostalgia for this song, as it was used for the NASCAR on NBC intro package. "Devil's Dance" is bluesy and bass heavy, providing a great cool-down. "The Memory Remains" is fun and again combines the blues atmosphere with the classic Metallica sound. And no the "nah nah nah" part isn't bad, you're just a whiny baby who doesn't appreciate good vocals. "Unforgiven II", a sequel to the track off the Black album, is quite the improvement from it's predecessor. "Prince Charming" is a lost classic that contains a groovy guitar riff and an electrifying atmosphere. This track absolutely captures the energy and charisma that made Metallica famous, so it's surprising that many write off this track just because of the negative association to Reload. A lot of the content here is fun, adventurous, and creative. It's not OG Old School Metallica, but it's a fresh direction for the band with some great hits.
Of course this isn't a perfect album by any stretch of the imagination. "Low Man's Lyric" is a captivating ballad with strong lyrical content, but overstays its welcome at 7 minutes and 30 seconds. "Fixxxer" is technically solid and actually pretty deep theme wise, but suffers from the same problem as it's yet another 8 minute run-on sentence of a track. "Where the Wild Things Are" features a strong drumming effort from Lars Ulrich, with an eerie and intimating sound providing a cool down from the aggression found earlier on the album. However this is completely nullified from just god awful, stretched vocals by Hetfield. It sounds like he was trying his hardest to come up with a new sound but it's a complete whiff. It's the one case here where Metallica experiments in the wrong direction. I find it strange a lot of critics think Metallica half-assed this album when I find it's a lot of the opposite - Metallica tries to stretch themselves out too far, experiment too much, and trying to pad out sections of the album way longer than they need to be. It's unfocused at times, sure, but there are significantly more hits than misses here.
Overall this album will get a lot of hate for being too experimental and continuing Metallica's shift in direction from their 1980's thrash classics. In retrospect, though, a lot of these songs get unfairly forgotten just because they're not "Whom the Bell Tolls Pt 16". Metallica sold out and became corny dads yelling at the internet, it's too bad that their poor image ruined an album that actually contains a solid selection of music. Is Reload "true OG thrash Metallica"? Absolutely not, but Metallica tried something new and most the songs here are solid and memorable. Not every track here is worth saving, but "Fuel" and "Prince Charming" are both top 10 Metallica songs and are standouts here. More songs like this and less 7 minute ballads and this could easily be a 4.5 or even a 5. I get the hate for something like St. Anger cause that album had horrible production quality and shitty garbage can drums but production wise this holds up. If you have issues with the production it might be time to replace your headphones there is nothing wrong here. It boggles my mind that some metal heads think Reload is bottom 5 Metallica or worse than Load. Reload is a hidden gem that won't get the respect it deserves only because it was cool to hate on Metallica in 1997. This is based and official. This is the word of the Biggle Boys.
