Load?

MetallicA's album “Load”  at the time, was considered to be their most controversial album. We are not going to discuss “St. Anger " or "LuLu " today. Honestly, I don't consider Lulu to be a MetallicA album, more so a project with Lou Reed. Load was even more controversial than the incredibly successful self-titled “Black Album.” The album was so successful that the band toured on it for 3 years and to this day, it is still on the Billboard charts, 625 weeks and counting. The follow up to The Black Album, Load was received with negative reviews by die hard fans, however, for a young generation of metalheads, such as myself, Load was a highly influential album. So much so, that I consider this album to be one of my most influential albums of all time. 

Today as I started my workout, I looked for some music to get me in the zone. As I listened to a custom playlist, I was reminded of how great the sixth studio album from my favorite band, MetallicA was. After finishing a set, I selected Load for my “gym jams.” Many die hard and even casual metalheads and MetallicA fans disliked this album for many reasons. MetallicA cut their hair. Alice in Chains bassist Mike Inez famously wrote “Friends don't let friends get haircuts” on his bass during the Unplugged recording. This was all in jest since the topic of MetallicA’s controversial haircuts was circulating the music world. 

Instead of going back to their thrash metal roots, like many had hoped after their polished, radio friendly 1991 release. Which they did not. They followed up with a more polished, radio friendly version of MetallicA. There were very few thrash riffs on the album, as a matter of fact, only one, on the opening track, “Ain't My Bitch.” The riff is not the central motif of the song either. The riff is more of a one off riff. On the back of the album is where the true “controversy” started. , instead of the band wearing other band t-shirts and torn up jeans, wielding a bottle of Jagermeister or a bottle of beer, MetallicA is seen wearing designer suits, smoking cigars, and drinking white wine. We won't mention the album cover and the disdain James Hetfield has for it to this day. 

As a young lad, at the coming of age period in my life. I discovered MetallicA on my own in a Wal-Mart somewhere in the deserts of Arizona. I was on vacation with my mom, sister and grandma when we stopped to pick up supplies and some music for the road. This was a pinnacle trip for me for multiple reasons. One of the albums we picked out for the road was, Pink Floyds “Dark Side of the Moon.” My grandma was a big fan of Big Band Swing, Elvis, and other music of her youth. She was not familiar with Pink Floyd. It came to be one of her favorite albums. I also became enamored with the beauty of our national parks. However, the most important moment was when I saw MetallicA on the tv in Wal-Mart. I remember being in awe of the video. It was the newly released single “Until It Sleeps.” I loved the imagery, dark and disturbing. Snakes, crucifixes, the devil, guitars, drums. Then there was the music. It was heavy! There was a guitar solo. James looked so cool wielding his black ESP Explorer and dawning his wolf necklace. I needed this album!

Sadly, my desire to obtain this album was met with stern opposition. My mother saw the music video and sharply said, “No, this isn't something we can all listen to.” Mind you, this was back in the day when cars typically only had a radio or tape player. In the middle of the desert, you get little to no radio reception and we all needed some kind of music. Walkmans were unreliable and consumed copious amounts of batteries. iPods and streaming services weren even a twinkle in some nerds' eyes, yet. Needless to say, I was unable to obtain the album at that time. Determined, I plotted out how to buy the album with my own money once I got home. And I did! I listened to the album religiously. At this time, I had been listening to White Zombie, The Offspring and Nine Inch Nails. The previously mentioned bands were great, but they lacked what I really wanted, guitar solos!

At this point, I hadn't started playing guitar. That would come a few months later. However, I was raised on epic guitar solos with a healthy diet of Carlos Santana, Pink Floyd, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eric Clapton and many more. Even before picking up the glorious 6 string, I loved me a righteous guitar solo. Load had everything a bustling coming of age young man like myself could ever want. Heavy riffs, great vocals and lyrics, badass guitar solos, heavy pounding drums, and attitude. Most importantly, it had great songwriting. I was also raised on a healthy diet of singer songwriter from the 70s. So, to me, it wasn't just about the aforementioned qualities of the album, it was also about the song. 

MetallicA had taken what they learned while writing and recording the Black Album and ran with it. Like most people and artists, MetallicA grew as individuals, as a band, and as musicians. Their taste in music had grown and expanded, clearly influencing this album. James was heavy into country music, Lars was deep into art, and Kirk was into Jazz and the Blues. I'm not sure what Jason was doing. Probably saving his hard earned millions to buy an island. Their personal lives were also a massive impact on the album, particularly James’. While recording Load, James’ dad had passed away. This major life event had a clear impact on James’ lyrics. James typically looked outwards while writing lyrics. He wrote mostly about the world he saw and how it bothered him. However, James began to open up more and more after looking deep into himself. This gave James a level of vulnerability in his lyrics and his voice. James dug deep and became far more vulnerable than he ever was on his previous recordings. 

After the passing of James’ father, James had gone off on a solo camping trip (A man after my own heart.) This left the rest of the band in a bit of a pickle. The band had a record to record, yet James had yet to finish recording not only his vocals, but some of his guitar parts. Since 1984s “Kill ‘em All' ' James had recorded all of the rhythm guitar parts. With James’ absence Kirk stepped in to record the missing parts. This added a different texture and tonality to the album. If you listen closely, you can hear when Kirk is playing rhythm and when he's not. There's not only a certain looseness to the parts, (James has been called the greatest rhythm player of all time) but there is a certain tone Kirk gets from his guitar pick. While James has said that the album “Felt a bit forced” in recent interviews, there's a certain level of freeness to the playing. Almost as if the band was just jamming. The album definitely has a “polished live performance” to it. Again, if you listen closely again, you can tell James and Kirk added many layers of guitars, thickening up the sound of the album. Along with the riffs and production of the album, the mixing is fantastic. It's easy to say that it is comparable to the production value of any Beatles record or Pink Floyd. 

To me, this is the pinnacle of the band's musicality. Sure, it's not the blistering speeds of “Ride the Lightning” or the epic riffs of “Master of Puppets” or the progressive complexity of “...And Justice for All.” However, the true musicianship shines in this album. James’ vocals are the best they have ever been. James came into his own world with his performance on this album. James’ performance on “Hero of the Day” is one of my absolute favorite vocal recordings of all time. As I look back on that performance as an “educated” musician, I find it to be even more impressive. The song is recorded in D Major, a first for MetallicA. Never had MetallicA recorded a song in a major key. They tended to prefer minor, half diminished and fully diminished. James sings the song in the key of B minor, sometimes flowing back to E minor. As a classically trained musician, I am impressed with his aural skills and how he managed to pull this off so well. 

Kirk took everything he had learned from Joe Satriani and all of his influences as a young guitarist and combined it with his newer influences of Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Blues, and Jazz. Kirk took what he was striving for on the Black Album, and what he did on the solo for “The Unforgiven '' and applied that to every solo on Load. Every solo on Load is perfect. Sitting right in the pocket of a well crafted song is a well crafted solo. Not flashy. No showboating. Just great original guitar solos. The pinnacle of Kirk's solos on that album for me is his performance on, “Bleeding Me.” A prime example of how MetallicA crafted a great song. The song builds up perfectly for Kirk to rip this Wah Wah pedal fueled solo where Kirk does call and response to James lyrics. To this day, I can't help but sing along to this well crafted guitar solo. 

Since the songs were less complex, the band had more room to breathe, not just vocally or in the guitar solos, but in the drums as well. Lars took his AC/DC approach to playing from The Black album and mixed it in with his sporadic thrash metal CaveMan Drums into what I like to call, Danish Troll Drums. Get it? Lars is Danish, kind of a troll, and he plays fairly simple yet unique fills. Jason's bass lines fit not only in with the guitar riffs and drums, but he starts to come into his own on this album. Clearly, he struggled finding his sound on “...And Justice For All.” He started to find his voice on the Black Album, but on Load is where Jason started to shine. 

While the album was controversial, I feel as though that MetallicAs new image was even more controversial. in the 80s, MetallicA had gone from a garage band to a mainstream Heavy Metal/Hard Rock band. Their fans were no longer able to “keep them in their back pocket,” as Kirk Hammett would later say. Fans had been calling MetallicA “sellouts” since the release of “Fade to Black” in 1984. The band has always embraced the controversy, mainly due to the fact the band was going to make the music THEY wanted to hear and play, not the music the thought others wanted them to make.

I feel as though this is partly due to the massive success MetallicA has had. Sure, they songs werent as fast. Sure, they production was highly polished with layers upon layers of guitars and vocals. Yes, MetallicA was on the radio once again. Yes, your girlfriend or mom enjoyed the music. As musicians or fans, we have to ask ourselves, is there anything wrong with that? I write music for me. I write the music I want to hear. I never picked up the guitar for anyone else but me. That is what Kirk, Lars, Jason and James did. After reading this, I ask you to go back and listen to that album with an open mind. I ask you to listen to the album with a new perspective on the album. Take away you bias. Take away your prejudice. Remove any ingrained preconceived notion of the album and listen to it purely based on the fact that it may or may not be a great album. Thats what 12 year old Chad did, and look what it did for me.