….And Justice For All, by Metallica

As someone who has now listened to the earlier albums of Metallica, I have at least some appreciation for their early material, and if some people saw them as sellouts for their guitar numbers, I have to say that in general I prefer their more melodic and generally their less “hard” material. This is perhaps unsurprising, given my own tastes in melodic rock and pop and other related genres. With this album, we come to a controversy in that the band had suffered the loss of their original bassist and had replaced him with a new player, and for whatever reason, his part was reduced in the mix to the point of largely being absent. As someone who frequently likes songs and acts because of their strong bass parts, this is certainly worrisome, and though there are some songs on this album that I anticipate listening to, as a whole this album is not one that I was enthusiastic about when compared to other albums of theirs. So does it manage to overcome my initial concerns about its lack of instrumental balance? Let’s find out.

“Blackened” begins the album with driving guitar and drums along with lyrics that reflect themes of a post-apocalyptic world where there is nothing left to kill or burn. It certainly sets a mood, that’s for sure. The instrumental bridge is a highlight. Title track “….And Justice For All” begins with some excellent melodic guitar before transitioning into a deep pessimism about the injustice of society that is lost in the face of oppression. Again, the instrumental bridge is a highlight here as well. “Eye of the Beholder” tries to overcome subjective differences by the narrator calling on others to trust his own vision, which others might be unwilling to do. “One” is simply gorgeous, and despite the song’s length (shared with the entire album, which is over an hour despite being only 9 songs long), it is not surprising that this song was the first Metallica single to chart on the pop charts. “The Shortest Straw” returns to themes of justice and communication and the struggle against injustice and discrimination. If this is a hard rock album, so far at least it appears to be very melodic nature and certainly not sludgy. “Harvester Of Sorrow” features more melodic guitars and driving drums with some intriguing vocal effects on the admittedly pretty repetitive lyrics. Still, this is a dark song that again returns to themes of misery and destruction as well as injustice. “The Frayed Ends Of Sanity” continue the mix between driving guitars and vocal effects that seek to portray a person and even a world at the end of its tether and succumbing to madness. “To Live Is To Die” is another gorgeous song, this one in honor of their fallen bandmate who had died in the making of this album. Despite its rather specific topical message, the music begins really beautifully before transitioning into a harder second intro, lyrics in honor of their fallen bandmate, and then a gorgeous outro that mimics the introduction. Dyers Eve, the only song on the album to be noticed as having explicit lyrics, closes the album out with a pretty driving and hard intro sound, some slowing drums, and then more thrash sounds before lyrics that strike familiar anti-authority and anti-parent notes, and then the album ends somewhat abruptly.

This is the sort of album that a band can only make when they are still somewhat young, and it is seldom the sort of album that ages well. This is not to say that the music included here is not excellent–the melodic and orchestral bridges and intros here demonstrate that the band could have made much different music if they had wanted to, but they wanted to play thrash metal at least at this phase of the band. More to the point, this album suffers because its lyrics talk a good game about justice but while the band was performing driving songs speaking out against injustice, the band itself was simultaneously being unjust to its own bassist by burying his instrument in the mix and giving bogus reasons for this act. Little comes easier to people than to talk about justice while being unable to be just, but few examples in music are as glaringly obvious as this one. Still, if you don’t think too much about how the band behaves and you don’t miss the bass too much, there is still much to enjoy here, if you like the sound. The musicianship–at least that which you can here–is certainly excellent, and the band was demonstrating that it could not only make compelling metal albums but also approach the mainstream.