Album 4: …And Justice for All
Band: Metallica
Released: September 7, 1988
Recorded: January 28 – May 1, 1988
Studio: One on One (Los Angeles)
Genre: Thrash metal, progressive metal
Length: 65:24
Label: Elektra
Producer: James Hetfield, Flemming Rasmussen, Lars Ulrich
Singles from ...And Justice for All
1. "Harvester of Sorrow"
Released: August 28, 1988
2. "Eye of the Beholder"
Released: October 30, 1988
3. "One"
Released: January 10, 1989
Professional ratingsMetacritic - 93/100 (expanded edition)
AllMusic - 4.5/5 stars
Chicago Tribune - 2.5/4 stars
Encyclopedia of Popular Music - 3/5 stars
Metal Forces - 10/10
Pitchfork - 9.3/10
Q - 4/5 stars
Rock Hard - 9.5/10
Rolling Stone - 4/5 stars
The Rolling Stone Album Guide - 4.5/5 stars
The Village Voice - C+
Track listing:
1. "Blackened" - 6:42
2. "...And Justice for All" - 9:46
3. "Eye of the Beholder" - 6:25
4. "One" - 7:26
5. "The Shortest Straw" - 6:35
6. "Harvester of Sorrow" - 5:45
7. "The Frayed Ends of Sanity" - 7:43
8. "To Live Is to Die" - 9:49
9. "Dyers Eve" - 5:14
Total length: 65:25
Bonus tracks (Japanese version)
10. "The Prince" (Diamond Head cover) - 4:26
Total length: 69:51
Music
We took the Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets concept as far as we could take it. There was no place else to go with the progressive, nutty, sideways side of Metallica, and I'm so proud of the fact that, in some way, that album is kind of the epitome of that progressive side of us up through the '80s.
—Lars Ulrich, on the band's direction for the album
This is completely sublimated rock, on a quest for a purity of form, light years beyond raunch or blues rock. Metallica turn heavy metal's melodrama into algebra. This isn't thrash, but thresh: mechanized mayhem. There's no blur, no mess, not even at peak velocity, but a rigorous grid of incisions and contusions.
—Simon Reynolds, on the album's music
...And Justice for All is a musically progressive album featuring long and complex songs, fast tempos and few verse-chorus structures. Metallica decided to broaden its sonic range, writing songs with multiple sections, heavy guitar arpeggios and unusual time signatures. Hetfield explained: "Songwriting-wise, [the album] was just us really showing off and trying to show what we could do. 'We've jammed six riffs into one song? Let's make it eight. Let's go crazy with it.'"
Critic Simon Reynolds noted the riff changes and experimentation with timing on the album's intricately constructed songs: "The tempo shifts, gear changes, lapses, decelerations and abrupt halts". BBC Music's Eamonn Stack wrote that ...And Justice for All sounds different from the band's previous albums, with longer songs, sparser arrangements, and harsher vocals by Hetfield. According to journalist Martin Popoff, the album is less melodic than its predecessors because of its frequent tempo changes, unusual song structures and layered guitars. He argued that the album is more of a progressive metal record because of its intricately performed music and bleak sound. Music writer Joel McIver called the album's music aggressive enough for Metallica to maintain its place with bands "at the mellower end of extreme metal". According to writer Christopher Knowles, Metallica took "the thrash concept to its logical conclusion" on the album.
Mix
The album was noted for its "dry, sterile" production. Rasmussen said that was not his intention, as he tried for an ambient sound similar to the previous two albums. He was not present during the album's mixing, for which Steve Thompson and Michael Barbiero had been hired beforehand. Rasmussen assumed that, in his absence from the mixing process, Thompson and Barbiero used only the close microphones on the mix and none of the room microphones, causing the "clicking", thin drum sound. The bass guitar is nearly inaudible, while the guitars sound "strangled mechanistic". He saw the "synthetic" percussion as another reason for the compressed sound.
At the instruction of Hetfield and Ulrich, Newsted's bass guitar was made almost inaudible. According to Rasmussen: "After Lars and James heard their initial mixes the first thing they said was, 'Take the bass down so you can just hear it, and then once you've done that take it down a further three dBs.' I have no idea why they wanted that, but it was totally out of my hands." In 2009, Hetfield said that the bass was obscured as the basslines often doubled his rhythm guitar, making the instruments indiscernible, and because the low frequencies were competing with his "scooped" guitar sound.
Newsted was not satisfied with the final mix and was unhappy that the bass was inaudible. Steve Thompson, who mixed the album, was also unhappy, and blamed Ulrich for the decision; he tried to quit the project, but was blocked by management. Rasmussen said in 2018: "I'm probably one of the only people in the world, including Jason and Toby Wright, the assistant engineer, who heard the bass tracks on And Justice for All, and they are fucking brilliant."
In 2019, Hetfield and Ulrich said they had mixed the bass low not to belittle Newsted, but because their hearing was "shot" following heavy touring and so they "basically kept turning everything else up until the bass disappeared". They decided not to adjust the mix for the remastered 2019 reissue, saying: "These records are a product of a certain time in life; they're snapshots of history and they're part of our story ... And Justice for All could use a little more low end and St. Anger could use a little less tin snare drum, but those things are what make those records part of our history."
Lyrics
The album title was revealed in April 1988: ...And Justice for All, after the final words of the Pledge of Allegiance. The lyrics address political and legal injustice as seen through the prism of war (including nuclear war) and censored speech. The majority of the songs raise issues that differ from the violent retaliation of the previous releases. Tom King writes that for the first time the lyrics dealt with political and environmental issues. He named contemporaries Nuclear Assault as the only other band who applied ecological lyrics to thrash metal songs rather than singing about Satan and Egyptian plagues. McIver noted that Hetfield, the band's main lyricist, wrote about topics that he had not addressed before, such as his revolt against the establishment. Ulrich described the songwriting process as their "CNN years", with him and Hetfield watching the channel in search for song subjects—"I'd read about the blacklisting thing, we'd get a title, 'The Shortest Straw,' and a song would come out of that."
Concerns about the state of the environment ("Blackened"), corruption ("...And Justice for All"), and blacklisting and discrimination ("The Shortest Straw") are emphasized with traditional existential themes. Issues such as freedom of speech and civil liberties ("Eye of the Beholder") are presented from a grim and pessimistic point of view. "One" was unofficially nicknamed an "antiwar anthem" for its lyrics, which portray the suffering of a wounded soldier. "Dyers Eve" is a lyrical rant from Hetfield to his parents. Burton received co-writing credit on "To Live Is to Die" as the bass line is a medley of unused recordings Burton had performed prior to his death. Because the original recordings are not used on the track, the composition is credited as written by Burton and played by Newsted. The spoken word section of the song was erroneously attributed in its entirety to Burton in the liner notes. The first line was actually written by German poet Paul Gerhardt ("When a man lies, he murders some part of the world.") while the second line comes from Lord Foul's Bane, a fantasy novel by American writer Stephen R. Donaldson ("These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives."). The second half of the speech ("All this I cannot bear to witness any longer. Cannot the kingdom of salvation take me home?") was written by Burton.
Artwork
The artwork was created by Stephen Gorman, based on a concept developed by Hetfield and Ulrich. It depicts a cracked statue of a blindfolded Lady Justice, bound by ropes with her breasts exposed and her scales overflowing with dollar bills, with the title in graffiti style.
Critical reception
Released on September 7, 1988, by Elektra Records, ...And Justice for All was acclaimed by music critics. In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone, Michael Azerrad said that Metallica's compositions are impressive and called the album's music "a marvel of precisely channeled aggression". Spin magazine's Sharon Liveten called it a "gem of a double record" and found the music both edgy and technically proficient. Simon Reynolds, writing in Melody Maker, said that "other bands would give their eye teeth" for the songs' riffs and found the album's densely complicated style of metal to be distinct from the monotonous sound of contemporary rock music: "Everything depends on utter punctuality and supreme surgical finesse. It's probably the most incisive music I've ever heard, in the literal sense of the word." Borivoj Krgin of Metal Forces said that it was the most ideal album he has heard because of typically exceptional production and musicianship that is more impressive than that of Master of Puppets. In a less enthusiastic review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau believed that the band's compositions lack song form and that the album "goes on longer" than Master of Puppets. In 1988, ...And Justice for All was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, but controversially lost to Jethro Tull's Crest of a Knave. In 2007, Entertainment Weekly, named this one of the 10 biggest upsets in Grammy history.
In a retrospective review, Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune said that ...And Justice for All was both the band's "most ambitious" and ultimately "flattest-sounding" album. AllMusic's Steve Huey noted that Metallica followed the blueprint of the previous two albums, with more sophisticated songs and "apocalyptic" lyrics that envisioned a society in decay. Music journalist Mick Wall was critical of the progressive elements on the album and believed that, apart from "One" and "Dyers Eve", most of the album sounded clumsy. Colin Larkin, writing in the Encyclopedia of Popular Music (2006), wrote that, apart from the praiseworthy "One", the album diminished the band's creativity by concentrating the songs with too many riffs. Ulrich said in retrospect that the album has improved with time and it is well-liked among their contemporaries.
Personnel
Metallica
• James Hetfield – vocals, rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, 2nd guitar solo on "To Live is to Die", production
• Kirk Hammett – lead guitar
• Jason Newsted – bass
• Lars Ulrich – drums, production
Production
• Flemming Rasmussen – production, engineering
• Toby "Rage" Wright – assistant and additional engineering
• Mike Clink – drum engineering on "The Shortest Straw" and "Harverster of Sorrow"
• Steve Thompson, Michael Barbiero – mixing
• George Cowan – assistant mixing engineer
• Bob Ludwig – mastering
• George Marino – 1995 remastering
• Reuben Cohen – 2018 remastering
Artwork
• James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich – cover concept
• Stephen Gorman – cover illustration
• Ross "Tobacco Road" Halfin – photography
• Pushead – hammer illustration
• Reiner Design Consultants, Inc. – design, layout
Monday, July 25, 2022
From a Facebook post about AJFA
As much as I'd like to do so, I cannot take credit for the content in this post. I saw it on Facebook.
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