Metallica - ...And Justice For All
Metallica
…And Justice For All
Release Date: September 7th, 1988
Label: Elektra
Review by Jared Stossel
On September 27th, 1986, in the middle of their highly anticipated “Damage Inc.” tour, Metallica’s bus flipped on a Swedish highway. Their bassist, Cliff Burton, was thrown through the window next to his bunk, before being crushed by the entirety of the bus. To this day, no one knows exactly what happened. The driver blamed a patch of black ice; no ice could be found on the road for miles. The band and crew placed the blame on the driver falling asleep at the wheel. Investigations were conducted, but no conclusion could be reached. In the end, that wouldn’t matter; what mattered the most was that Metallica’s bright light, the incredibly talented and laidback Cliff Burton was gone. It’s a tragedy that still permeates the atmosphere of the heavy metal world today. Burton was truly one of the greatest musicians to ever do it, and his playing on Metallica’s first three albums only serves as evidence of this fact. After some time off and lengthy discussions, the band made the decision: Burton would hate them if he knew that they decided to hang it up after he was gone. The only choice was to soldier on.
The audition process led to the recruitment of Jason Newsted, bassist of thrash metal act Flotsam and Jetsam. A talented songwriter in his own right – and a massive Metallica fan – Newsted’s addition to the band would prove to be invaluable. After securing the next piece of the puzzle, the Bay Area four-piece would reconvene with producer Flemming Rasmussen at One on One Recording Studio in Los Angeles to lay down their sprawling epic …And Justice For All. With political overtones, aggressive sound, and a fire under their ass, Justice clocks in at sixty-five minutes, the longest Metallica record yet.
…And Justice For All is an odd record. On the one hand, it has some of the best riffs, guitar solos, and instrumentals on a Metallica album. It is apparent that they came into recording the songs to prove to the world that they could still soldier on despite facing adversity, presenting some of their longest compositions yet and using the length to show off undoubtedly impressive musicianship. On the other hand, it features some of the flattest mixing of any Metallica album, and I think that the length of the songs sometimes plays to its detriment. It is indeed the most progressive album in Metallica’s catalog; with a few exceptions, the verse/chorus structure is somewhat absent, with the band taking the approach of packing in as many little riffs and tempo changes as they possibly could. Even with its downsides, Justice is a power-packed record, and it took Metallica to even greater heights, earning them larger-scale tours and even a Grammy nomination (which they would infamously lose to Jethro Tull). There are elements of the thrash metal that once catapulted them to the forefront of the scene on this record, but for the most part, this is the sound of a band trying to break out of that world but not quite able to just yet.
Lyrically, …And Justice For All expands beyond anything Metallica had done on their previous records, substituting Biblical references and phantom lords for scathing commentary on the justice system (the title track), freedom of speech (“Eye of the Beholder”), and the album’s centerpiece, the anti-war anthem known as “One”. It’s one of the longest tracks on Justice, the first to spawn a music video from the band and is now pretty much required to be played during any Metallica outing since its inception.
The track that stands out most to me on …And Justice For All is ‘To Live Is To Die’, the penultimate nearly ten-minute instrumental that follows in the footsteps of “The Call of Ktulu” and “Orion”. It is the final song to give Cliff Burton writing credit, comprised of re-recorded bass lines written by Burton prior to his passing. The song begins the way a track like Ride The Lightning’s “Fight Fire With Fire” would start: slow and steady. You can hear the fader on the mixing board lifting as the full band kicks in, leaving the Metallica of the past behind them. It feels like a pseudo-tribute to Burton, paying homage to their fallen brother while trying to figure out a way to keep progressing. The song continues for nearly ten minutes before the heaviness fades out, the calmness from the beginning of the track fading back in. It gives way to the feeling that the old Metallica is on a loop, forever suspended at a moment in time that will live on through vinyl, cassette, and digital files. Burton may be gone, but the influence that he had on the band will forever remain.
Perhaps the most significant criticism of …And Justice For All, aside from the flat-sounding mix of the record, is the almost non-existent bass lines. Both Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield have explained that their hearing was shot after years of touring, so they basically kept turning everything up on the mixing board, which ultimately resulted in the sacrifice of the bass frequencies. Some have attributed the lack of bass to hazing newcomer Newsted, but I don’t think that tracks; this is a band that was out to prove something to the world, and it’s not likely they would try to sabotage one of their own if it meant sacrificing the final product of an album that would catapult them to new heights. Mixing errors aside, I think that the lack of bass on Justice is poetic. Even though Newsted is an outstanding bassist, it’s a symbolic, historical representation of how the band may have been feeling at the time: they had lost someone dear to them, and no matter who they got to fill in, no one could ever replace Burton.
…And Justice For All is not Metallica’s greatest effort, but it serves as a powerful example of what adversity can produce. It marks a transitional period for a band that was making its way to the top of the world yet couldn’t completely figure out how to get there. The progressive fourth album serves as a checkpoint in the band’s roadmap, their ambitions being pulled in many different directions but ultimately catapulting them towards their goal of world domination. No, that would come in two years, when a producer named Bob Rock would enter their world and everything would fade to black.
