...And Justice For All -- Revisited

…And Justice For All – Revisited

When people talk about what is important, it is general like family, work, and health come up. So when I say that Metallica is important to me, others would probably think that I’m being trivial. What I mean by importance here is how our interests help define who we are, at least to ourselves, especially in our impressionable adolescent years.

Metallica was the first band I really became emotionally invested in, to the extent that I had actual dreams about how then bass player Jason Newsted became sick and they needed someone to fill in for one show. So they’d meet up with me and ride to the gig in my parents Aerostar mini-van. The funny thing is in real life don’t know how to play, nor ever have known how to play the bass. But I guess that’s how dreams work. In mine, I winged it just fine at the concert.

My cousin was the first person to tell me about Metallica. (My cousins, my older brother, and I used to stage our own Van Halen concerts to a 1984 tape in our grandparents’ basement.) It was riding with my brother and his buddy to school or someplace that I first heard the band, though. I was 12 and it was Master of Puppets.

By the time I was , let’s say… 13, my kid friends and I were all about …And Justice For All. I would stay the night over at a friend’s house and we’d listen to the album in the dark. When the tape reached “To Live Is To Die”, we’d recite the monologue along with the song. “When a man lies, he murders a part of the world…” Sounds corny, but it wasn’t to us back then.

After the release of Death Magnetic, the claims are that this new album is a return to form and what would have been a natural progression after …And Justice. I still haven’t given Death Magnetic an honest listen yet. I’ve only heard short clips. Like a lot of fans, Metallica haven’t really done anything I consider relevant since the Black Album. I’m skeptical of these claims and the clips I’ve heard haven’t helped cure my doubts. What the hype has done, though, is re-open the casket that my interest for the band had been buried in for a few years. As catchy as Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets are, Justice has always been my favorite Metallica album. My tape version of this album is long gone, but fortunately I had the foresight to pick up a used copy on cd a while back, just in case.

When …And Justice For All came out, it received a lot of criticism for being overambitious. It was definitely musically, and thematically the most complex work Metallica had done. The nine lengthy tracks have enough material and riffage, with all the different time signatures and changes, that each could probably be broken into three separate songs of their own. As for content, anyone who has heard the album will tell you that it is a highly political one, tackling issues such as the shortcomings of government and its justice system, and the poor treatment of war veterans fighting unnecessary wars.

When I tell people that Justice is my favorite Metallica album, they tend to say something like, “How can it be your favorite? There’s no bass on it!” It’s obviously true that there isn’t any bass in the mix. I think I read an interview somewhere that then new bass player Jason Newsted (who had big shoes to fill after the death of the former bassist Cliff Burton), had very little say in the writing and production of the album. James, Lars, and Kirk just made sure their stuff stood out more in the mix, I guess. I say “So what!” Not playing down the role of the bass in heavy metal, but the album sounds great to me without it. I find the immediacy of the lo-fi production adds more to message the band tried to get across, and fits in with some of the current trends in production going on now.

This is starting to get long and I haven’t even talked about the individual songs. There will definitely have to be a re-revisited review in the future. I imagine if anyone actually reads this, the chance is that they are familiar with …And Justice For All. If it has been a while since you heard it last, then give it another spin for old-times sake. Cheers.

--Flash