Metallica
-Metallica’s Best Ballads
The Band: James Hetfield- lead vocals, rhythm guitar
Kirk Hammet- lead guitar, back up vocals
Jason Newsted- bass, back up vocals
Lars Ulrich- drums
Metallica have always been known for their thrash metal style. Fast paced songs, driving power chorded riffs, shredding solos etc. But what some people don’t know is they have their fair share of beautifully written ballads as well. This album gives those ballads the attention they deserve. I myself have always been a big fan of Metallica’s ballads. Overall I probably like them more than their heavier tracks. The majority of them are more solidly written than the heavier ones. The main reason for this may be that the heavier tracks can rely on simply being incredibly fast and distorted to sound good. The ballads unfortunately don’t have that privilege. Since they are much slower and not quite as entertaining they
must be well written o they become extremely boring. A cunning example of this is “Nothing Else Matters”. Probably Metallica’s most tender ballad and unfathomably well written, but even the most well written of tracks can become boring at times and this one is no exception. I love this song to no end, but even I can’t listen to it more than four or five times in a row without growing tired of it. That’s why I usually prefer their heavier tracks. Now, like I said overall I like their ballads better, but their playback value is flawed. So, I myself usually listen to tracks like “Battery” more than “Nothing Else Matters”. Now, as some of you may have already figured out since this album is entirely composed of ballads it tends to get boring and fast. All the songs by themselves are marvelous, but trying to sit through them all in a row is a difficult task. This will probably affect this album’s overall rating by at least half a point. It would have been tolerable if they through two or three heavy tracks. Although, that would contradict the title.
This album all in all has sort of a depressing feel to it. This is due to the combination of the soft depressing lyrics and the melodic tenderness that comes hand in hand with any of Metallica’s ballads. It’s sort of a mood soothing album. If you’re really hyper or over stimulated it will lull you into sort of “Zen” state. Or, if you’re already in a calm mood, it’ll suite your mood perfectly. Lots of these songs can be helpful during rough patches in your life, like deaths, break ups etc. “Fade To Black” and “To Live Is To Die” are perfect songs to listen to if you have recently lost a loved one. In the case of a break up I would go with “Nothing Else Matters”. Personally, I find this album a bit too depressing at times, so I don’t listen to it very often. I start to miss the heavy tracks like “Battery”, “For Whom The Bell Tolls” and so forth. Don’t get me wrong I love all of Metallica’s ballads but after a while if you listen to them you get sort of a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, or at least I do. Then I crank some metal and it’s all good. So, overall this isn’t an album you listen to day in and day out, but it’s a good listen now and then. Like I’ve already mentioned I myself can’t listen to the whole thing through anymore, but I still put it on and listen to one or two tracks occasionally.
Like I already mentioned this album was very instrumentally sound because again like I already said they had to be due to the somewhat unentertaining atmosphere of most tracks. The guitar played a huge role in all of the tracks. A few tracks like “Fade To Black”, “One” and “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” had spectacular intro solos. This helped the tracks immensely because it grabs the listener’s attention right away and gets them really listening to the song. Some of the other songs faltered in that aspect. It’s necessary when writing a ballad to get the listener attention off the bat, otherwise the music tends to fall on deaf ears. A couple good examples of this are “The Unforgiven” and “Nothing Else Matters”. These tracks do very little in the early going to get attention, so they end up being a bit more boring than the others. Not to say that they’re bad tracks though. I
personally love them both, I’m just speaking from a general point of view. A trend that a lot of the tracks seem to follow is that the verse is a picked riff contrary to Metallica’s usual verses which are power chorded and undeniably fast and distorted. The chorus’s are usually heavier than the verses, but still aren’t too heavy. The majority of the rhythm guitar was very well written and helped to keep the album from getting too boring. Although, some of the tracks from “Load” didn’t have quite as good of rhythm guitar work as the earlier ballads. Many of the tracks also have outstanding bridges/interludes. Take for example “The Unforgiven” it has a great clean-toned interlude right before it goes into the solo, which is heavy and distorted. I thought that was good because the quick contrast of sounds can easily recapture the listener’s attention if he/she had sort of tuned out at this point. Actually most tracks had at least one heavy distorted solo in them somewhere, even nothing else matters. All of the solos were expertly written as was almost every guitar part anywhere on this album. All in all, the guitar was exceptional and really helped to keep this album alive.
The bass was marvelous as well, although I usually prefer the bass work in heavier tracks. Mainly because the bass in the heavier tracks is much faster and just more fun. The bass in the ballads is sort mellow for my tastes. I like fast bass riffs, that’s probably why I’ve never bothered to learn how to play any of these songs on bass. I find there’s a rather large contrast in the bass lines of the two different types of songs. The heavier tracks are usually mainly played on the two lower strings with a lot of hammer ons pull-offs and like I said very fast paced. The ballads (everything on this album) is mainly played on the two higher pitched strings, at least they were from what I could here, which wasn’t much. There were a lot more slides and instead of being constant there were usually one or two notes every few seconds. All of the bass lines were well written, though. Although, I doubt they’re really too fun to play. The bass also managed to keep great rhythm throughout the entire album. Kudos to Cliff/Jason on that. I said Cliff/Jason because theirs songs from when Cliff was around and there’s and there’s lots of Jason’s songs as well. Actually they could’ve rerecorded these tracks just for this album instead of taking their old recordings. I’m not really sure. If so, then just great job by Jason.
The drums for this album could’ve been a bit better, but it wasn’t really Lars’s fault. There’s not a lot he can do with just ballads. It’s not like he could throw in a bunch of random fast paced drum solos. That just wouldn’t work. The majority of the album seems to be simpler beats, which does suite the album well regardless of how simple they are. Lars did mix things up a bit when he could. Throwing in lots of little roll beats and fills here and there. Mainly between verses and choruses., but even those weren’t too great. A lot of them were slow paced and kind of boring. The drums were very technically sound though and in the correct timing throughout. There’s not much more I can say about them. Kind of simple, I did enjoy Lars use of his cymbals though, they seemed to add more emotion to most songs. Overall the drums were about average, but didn’t take anything away from the album in my opinion because when I’m listening to a song I usually don’t concentrate on the drums, unless of course I have to for a review.
Overall Rating: 4/5
Pros: Well written overall
James did a good job with all the vocals
Excellent solos
Cons: gets boring after a while
This album would be a 4.5, but do to its sort of boring nature I brought it down to a four. This album really isn’t a necessity. If you’re really into Metallica like myself and want to collect all their albums then search for it. Otherwise don’t bother. All of these tracks are on their other albums anyways and on
those albums they’re also accompanied by heavier tracks to keep things from getting boring. I would however recommend learning some of these tracks. They’re all pretty fun to play. Until next time keep your stick on the ice.
Metallicaman
