I so want to be one of the cool kids. But I can’t be one of the cool kids, because I don’t like Metallica. I don’t know why and I don’t know how and I don’t know much of anything at all, except this: Lots of people whose tastes in music I respect speak highly of Metallica, and early Metallica in particular. Whereas I must say the only Metallica song I’ve ever really listened to, “Enter Sandman,” has always struck me as absolutely fucktooth awful. It’s stiff and rigid and makes me feel claustrophobic, and based on it and it alone I would have to call Metallica one of the most tight-assed, as opposed to tight, bands in the history of rock.
I’m a firm believer in judging a band before I give them a fair shake, but in Metallica’s case I made an exception for the sake of my friends, who think I should like Metallica because they’re a seminal thrash band and broke commercial barriers and all that. So I listened to the highly recommended 1986 LP Master of Puppets, and having done so it is my expert musical opinion that Metallica probably sounds great if you’ve just snorted a big long line of crystal meth. Unfortunately I left all my crank back in 1988, and without it all I can say is that Metallica writes crappier-than-usual metal-issue lyrics, has no discernible sense of humor, and isn’t big on catchy melodies. What Metallica is big on is demonstrating its impressive chops.
It all sounds like a cold and lifeless exercise in virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake to me, the way Metallica goes from pumping out bone-crushing riffs at 1,000 mph to playing martial marching music that brings to mind the Nuremburg rallies. They might as well have called this baby Music to Invade Poland By. Oh, and I almost forgot, at least half the tunes are twice as long as they should be. Metallica holds the dubious honor of being the Grateful Dead of Thrash.
And it’s not like I can be accused of hating thrash metal per se. I really enjoy Anthrax, because their sound is less fascistic and they’ve written lots of great songs like “Caught in a Mosh” and “Antisocial” and “S.S.C./Stand and Fall” and even have a bona fide sense of humor! And they rap! Just try to imagine Metallica recording a hilarious tune like “Bud E Luv Bomb and Satan’s Lounge Band.” They’d blow black exhaust out their too-tight asses and explode like fragmentation grenades. And oh yeah, Anthrax’s lyrics actually make sense!
Formed in Los Angeles in 1981, Metallica featured James Hetfield (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Kirk Hammett (lead guitar), Cliff Burton (bass, backing vocals), and Lars Ulrich (drums). 1986’s Master of Puppets was Metallica’s third studio LP and the first released on a major label, and received mucho critical acclaim, which leads me to believe that most music critics in 1986 were, like me, still doing way too much crystal meth. That or receiving kickbacks from record labels. Because you can’t listen to Metallica for their melodies or their thought-provoking lyrics or their sense of humor, which leaves us back where we started, i.e., they’re sonic show-offs, playing head-banging aggrothrash for 13-year-olds suffering from sudden testosterone onset overload. Except that leaves my friends, who swear by Metallica and I’ll be damned if I know why, because this is not music, it’s the mechanized sound of an army at war. I’ll bet you Special Forces dudes dig this shit, despite the album’s vaguely anti-war bent. Which is one of the few things I like about it, although I make it a point never to listen to a band for their politics.
Anyway, album opener “Battery” opens with some strummed guitar before exploding in a crescendo, at which point the band goes full thresher on ya. Me, I don’t care for the melody, or much of anything else except the guys shouting “Battery!” and the way cool guitar solo at around the 3 ½ minute mark. But the lyrics! Anybody who writes a line like, “Whipping up a fury/Dominating flurry” should have his songwriting credentials revoked. Dominating flurry? Are we talking about a snowflake on steroids? An S&M snowflake? As for “Master of Puppets,” it’s an anti-drug song and at least twice as long as it should be, and has like three parts to prove how clever the boys are. There’s the usual superthrash opening, which is followed by a melodic mid-section which is the only part of the song I like, and a third section (this is at around what feels like the 90-minute mark) in which the band falls back into its patented martial lockstep. The band cries, “Master, master!” just to let you know who the true top is in any drug-human relationship, and even if it’s true I still find it as annoying as all fuck.
“The Thing That Should Not Be” is the song itself, a clever conceptual conceit the band is totally blind to. All I get from this one is a clunky beginning, no melody to speak of, and lyrics as bad as any I’ve ever run screaming from. “Hybrid children watch the sea/Pray for Father, roaming free.” Really? Hybrid children? What, do they come with both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor? It does feature a decent guitar solo, but in the meantime it lurches from here to there, irking me no end. “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” is the sole cut on the album I can almost say I like, thanks to its sweet guitar intro and actual melody. Unlike the LP’s other tunes, on this one the band isn’t so busy thrashing and bashing to remember they’re supposed to be playing a song. So what if it reminds me of Styx and Kansas? It’s a real honest-to-God tune! And when it does kick into thrash mode the thrash sounds like part of the song rather than the point of the song, which is the feeling I get from most of the album.
“Disposable Heroes” is, like “Master of Puppets,” twice as long as it should be, and opens on a promising note with some guitar wank that actually works. But then the thrash takes over and what follows is an anti-war tune whose sentiments I agree with but whose execution leaves me queasy. Have I mentioned I don’t care for Hetfield’s vocals? They have a 100 percent machismo factor, are wooden and incapable of nuance, and they bug the hell out of me. Meanwhile, the tune takes off with a cool guitar solo I actually like, but the frequent changes in tempo annoy me and leave me with the sense that the song has no center, or core, around which the song’s many variations hinge. There’s a word for music like that and it’s prog, and “Disposable Heroes” strikes me as being as prog as anything ever recorded by Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Strike up another one for virtuosity run amok.
I think “Leper Messiah” is a song against organized religion, but it’s clunky and sorta thuds along like a drunken dinosaur trying to walk a straight line for a highway patrolman. Then comes an instrumental interlude, some thrash, and another top-notch guitar solo, which is followed by more thrash, a few death throes in the form of starts and stops, and the Messiah is dead. But at least it’s better than “Orion,” an eight-plus minute instrumental and total waste of space, full of sound and flurries and signifying nothing much. It’s just lots of primal riffage with no melody attached, and it comes to a fake stop to go into a really spacy passage that is as bearable (albeit pointless) as Metallica gets. About the only good thing I can say about it is that it doesn’t include any howlingly bad lyrics, which is no small thing. What’s more it isn’t as airlessly and seamlessly tight as the other tunes, and the guitar solo that comes near the end of the song is quite good. Finally, the best thing about LP closer “Damage, Inc.” is its title. And I say that despite the fact that, along with “Welcome Home (Sanitarium),” it’s the only song on Master of Puppets I can stomach. It’s a simple case of assault and battery on the ears, and doesn’t offer you anything but a good pummeling, thanks to its frenetic tempo and Hetfield’s speed vocals. In short it has some hardcore in its genes, which is a good thing. Finally, there’s the guy who whispers, “Damage, Inc.” I like him. He’s way cool.
No, I’m afraid I’ll never be one of the cool kids, because Master of Puppets made for one tough listen. John Stabb, formerly of Government Issue, dubbed the LP Master of Muppets, and if Metallica had given the album that name I might think differently about them. It would have demonstrated they possess a sense of humor. What Metallica has for sale are fireworks and pyrotechnics and nothing but fireworks and pyrotechnics, and I need more from the music I love. Intelligent lyrics, or good melodies, or a sense of humor, or a vocalist whose voice can take you places you could never get to on your own—Master of Puppets doesn’t have any of these things on offer. It’s just one foreboding din, produced by technicians in love with speed, dynamics, and power. To which I say, Bah humbug.
Although if given sufficient crystal meth, enough for say eight or nine big honking lines, I just might love these guys.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
C-
