Metallica: Back to the Front

Metallica Store
Written By: Matt Taylor
Foreword by James Hetfield – Afterword by Ray Burton
Released: August 16, 2016
276 pages
Publisher: Insight Editions

Metallica’s tell-all about the Master Of Puppets album and subsequent tour is presented with the same meticulous attention to detail and professionalism as every other project they’ve put their mind to…. except that Lulu album…

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Introduction:

You already know it’s coming, but….
… your mind keeps hoping somehow it doesn’t.

Metallica: Back to the Front starts with a date — September 27, 1986 — and a nuanced description of a Swedish countryside. It talks about how a car traveling those roads can feel detached from time and space… and then it focuses in on Metallica’s tour bus traveling the same roads. It’s at this point that almost any reader will know what’s coming. It kind of hit me like a shock when I realized they were opening with one of the most tragic events in Metallica’s history, but I prepared myself for the inevitable. The thing is, it didn’t come. Matt Taylor and Metallica don’t use Cliff Burton’s death to simply provide a shocking way to open the book. Instead, the subsequent series of events are presented almost like a movie. There are beautifully detailed descriptions of the countryside, the tour bus, and its occupants. Funny stories and observations…