MicShazam

I do think Ulrich played some interesting things on Justice. He's pretty much the sole reason I started noticing bass drum playing in music way back. I'd never heard anything like those somewhat odd patterns on that album.

MicShazam

Probably in the minority here but: I think ReLoad had perfect sound. Good bass tone and presence, colourful and meaty guitars, lots of subtle filters and effects giving various tracks their own flavour. Easily the best sounding Metallica album in my opinion and also helped by the fact that Hetfield learned to sing around the time they recorded it (and then made sure to forget how again before they recorded St. Anger).

EDIT: Forgot the drums. They sound fine too. I always liked Ulrich's strange, "wet" bass drum tone.

JGuy Grungeman

I haven't heard ReLoad yet, but Load's a good album. Sure, Metallica needed work experimenting with things outside their metal works, and they clearly weren't fully ready for blues rock (if they ever will be), but they still managed to make a fun album nonetheless.

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Blank.

It's been a while since I heard load. But as I recall, it had really flat production. Very compressed. And while they overcame the set back in a few songs, for the most part, it took away from the album.

MicShazam

What I like about Reload is that it sounds better than Load (to me anyway) and that it is even more fun to listen to. Once you're past the first three tracks, the album is pretty much just an unbroken string of great tunes. Slither, Carpe Diem, Attitude, Prince Charming, Where the Wild Things Are... All some of my favourite Metallica tracks and all universally forgotten by everyone it seems.

MicShazam

I'm not so sure about compression levels, but Load does sound more dark and samey that Reload. I'm not sure why, but I just get tired of Load more easily.

Terrapin_Station

What I mean is this: from bar to bar, or if you compare bar 10 to bar 14, say, you can keep things steady in terms of bpm, but let's say that you're playing a syncopated eighth note note figure across those four bars. Well in terms of what we'd call "quantization" a la electronic gear, some of those eighth notes might be ahead of perfect mathematical divisions, and some might be late.

Keeping the same bpm across a number of bars (and the whole piece) is being metronomic on a broad level--and usually that's desired, at least unless you're intentionally straying from it for some reason.

The eighth notes being quite a bit ahead or behind the beat within those bars would be an example of not being metronomic on a fine-grained level. Some of us prefer this, too, as it helps the music groove and lets it "breathe"--it doesn't sound like we've got a TR-909 playing four on the floor.If you were to match his playing up with a perfectly quantized sequence of a transcription of what he's playing, he'd often be ahead or behind the sequencer. (As would Lars and Ringo)

William_the_Bloody

Metallica lost there passion over two decades ago when they became rich millionaires.

I suppose if someone tied me down and forced me to listen to it I would think it's allright, but I doubt that I will ever hear anything as good as their first three albums.

Like the other big three there time as long since come and gone, and there pretty much playing the classic rock circuit now.

Norg

well for one since like IDK 1988 he has been using the Basic of the basic Hi hat snare beat and yes I know that's the money making backbone for all songs but there comes a point were if u do it for IDK 28 years for multiple songs

u might wanna try something else

Blank.

Well, the snare fill, as I recall, in Sad But True is considered to be a bit of an innovation for its time. The main reason Ulrich gets so much shit is he doesn't play in time very well.