Metallica-Reload (1997)

 

Artist: Metallica

Title: Reload

Label: Elektra

Format: CD

Cat #:62126-2

Year of Release: 1997

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1997

Listed Condition VG+/VG+

Sell Date: 5/25/24

Sell Price:$3.34

Discogs Last Sold:4/18/24 G+/generic $0.99

Low: $0.99

Median: $2.00

Average: $4.04

High: $13.99

Current low price: $1.99

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 42

Have/Want: 3042/279

Where Sold: Clarks Hill, SC

Time it took to sell: 10 years

Where and When Bought: new upon release probably Sounds on St. Marks NYC

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: B

Sad To See It Go: No

The Metal Militia's companion follow-up to Load, named Reload, continued on the path of artful decline.  Certainly there were hits here with videos to accompany them. "The Unforgiven" got a sequel.  Back then, the word from the media was it was countrified with pedal steel, but I'm thinking I hear more King Crimson. The biggest was the live standard album opener "Fuel" that always seemed a little forced action to me.  The best of the hits had Marianne Faithful la-la-la-la'ing her way through the second half in Broken English.  More memorable to me was the riff on that one.

After those three, I remembered nothing else from this one.  Over the years I've seen the band play "Fuel" live but I guess I can't remember this album having much impact as the years went by and other new albums were toured on.  It is a long and arduous task it listen to this three times straight.  On the first listen, a couple mid-tempo songs in the middle of the CD made my ears perk up: "Carpe Diem Baby" and "Bad Seed" despite it's alterna-90's compressed vocals, had it's charms.

Of the rest, "Better Than You" stood out on the second listen as probably the best song on the album if only for it's traditional banger chug.  So did the verse melody of "Slither" which was reminiscent of the prior albums "King Nothing."  Same with the soldiers of to war without wild musical rumpus but with a bit of Alice-in-Chainitis on "Where The Wild Things Are."  "Prince Charming" has kids playing in dirty water and a similar riff to "Fuel."  "Low Man's Lyric" has a cool prog sounding outro and outside of the hits was the song on the album that the band has played live over the years.  The outro goes nicely into the Priest-style riff of "Attitude."   "Fixxxer" closes out with a nice riff laden  intro.  They only tackled it live in San Francisco once in 2011.  It proves that the opening clicks are not damaged CD glitch.  "Devil's Dance," sandwiched between the albums hits, also received some live attention around the time of release including MTV Unplugged as well as the S&M Orchestra concert. 

Metallica can't really make a "bad" album if they tried.  After a few listens I bumped the grade up from a B-/C+ from my initial couple relistens.  There enough cool stuff in here for me to say it ain't shit or even mediocre.  The problem is they set the bar high on the first four and then the massive popularity of the Black Album meant they were going to have to pay attention to the mainstream even if they snuck in cool parts.  This means the songs going forward always have a bit of a Frankenstein labored feel.  A labor to record and a labor to listen.   

Hetfield said it: "born into attitude, asleep at the wheel."