Review Summary: A sadly over-hated album. While it isn't perfect, it is a vast improvement over Load, and deserves another listen, without any prejudice.
Ah Metallica, love them or hate them, you can't deny the impact and influence they've had over the metal genre. It seems, however, that nowadays it's the norm on the internet to absolutely despise Metallica. While I'm certainly not a fan of every decision they've made over the years, I still think they're a great band, and I hold out hope that they've still got one great album left in them.
Well onto the subject at hand. ReLoad was the follow up to 1996's Load, and it seems to get thrown into the same boat as Load, hated for being the two albums that ruined Metallica. I for one don't care if a band "sold out", good music is good music, plain and simple, and you know what? ReLoad is good. It's a far stretch from Countdown to Extinction, but overall, it's a solid album.
The musicianship on this album is great. James vocals sound better than on Load, at least to me, and Jason delivers a good bass performance on his final studio album with the boys. Kirk's solos aren't really the highlights of the songs like they were pre Black Album, and there's nothing that memorable, but he doesn't do a bad job. And personally I think this album has Lars' best drumming performance on it, not as aggressive as ...And Justice For All, but a good deal more natural and fluid sounding, which I prefer.
Musically, ReLoad is what you'd expect, a continuation of Load, with bluesy influences throughout, not as apparent as Load, but still there. This album is heavily driven by rhythms, and there seems to be something different about every track. The very famous Fuel starts off with James yelling about, uhh, fuel, before a cool guitar line kicks in. Devils Dance is driven by Jason's bass and has a very groovy feel to it. Where the Wild Things Are starts out with a very weird intro before kicking into a verse, and then using the intro as the basis for a chorus, probably one of the best songs on the album. Prince Charming is probably the heaviest song on the album, jam packed with riffs, and with an awesome chorus to boot (hey ma look it's me!). And closing track Fixxxer is probably one the deepest songs Metallica has ever written, another highlight, if you don't mind long songs.
The Unforgiven II is a second part to The Unforgiven off of the Black Album, a song I was never a fan of, needless to say I find II vastly superior, and it's a good example of the bluesy thing Metallica was looking to do working. Low Mans Lyric is another emotional song, it features a certain odd instrument (I forget the name) and great singing from James, though it's otherwise unremarkable.
Of course the album has it's low points. Better Than You, Bad Seed, and Attitude are particularly boring and are essentially filler songs. Also I've never understood why people like The Memory Remains so much, it's mostly confusing and catchy.
Overall, ReLoad, and Load before it, need to be judged on their own merits, rather than being written off as sell outs. If more people took they time to listen objectively, rather than just get pissed for no reason, I feel like this album would be recognized as a solid hard rock album.
3.5/5
