Released: 1986
Tracks: Battery; Master of Puppets; The Thing That Should Not Be; Welcome Home (Sanitarium); Disposable Heroes; Leper Messiah; Orion; Damage, Inc.
Best track: probably Master of Puppets, but Sanitarium, Orion & Damage Inc are also incredible
Track to skip: none
This is my favorite Metallica album and one that really shaped who I am as a musician. Every time I listen to this it’s obvious how much of an influence Cliff Burton was and is on my bass playing. For me, and most (real) Metallica fans, you can’t mention this album without significant talk of Burton. Not only because this was his last album before he died, but also because he’s a major player on here and a big part of the soul of this album. It’s no wonder that the 3 best tracks on here, Master of Puppets, Orion & Damage Inc have Burton writing credits. In listening to this album you really get the sense of how Metallica were the de facto leaders of Thrash/Speed metal in 1986. Anthrax was doing Spreading the Disease, Megadeth put out Peace Sells, Slayer unleashed Reign in Blood and bands like Testament were just beginning. Metallica was clearly light years ahead of all those bands at this point in time.
For the first time, no skippable tracks are on a Metallica album. Solid all the way through. Once again, the album starts off with acoustic guitar, except this time it’s nowhere near as pretty as the intro of Fight Fire With Fire. The band just grew huge leaps since 1984. The songwriting, the playing, the emotion, all of it increased massive levels since Ride the Lightning. All of the songs on here are in the 5-8 minute range, so there’s plenty of good stuff to go around. There’s the onslaught of Battery, the gorgeous harmonies in the middle of Master of Puppets, the trippiness of Sanitarium, the lyrics on all these songs, Cliff’s beautiful and perfect middle section of Orion…there is so much I love about this album. Simply put, Metallica does not get better than Master of Puppets. I don’t care what anybody says, this is their peak. This is one of the most intelligent, excellent and essential metal albums of all time.
Rating: 97
Write a comment