Anyone who posts on here saying that their fav. track is "Until it Sleeps" but that this album isn't metal enough and isn't good makes no sense. "Until it Sleeps" is one of the soft, shitty, and lesser songs on this album. I prefer "King Nothing" "Bleeding Me" "Ronnie" and "The Outlaw Torn" but I really like the whole album, even "UIS" . I also think that Kill 'em All is way under rated on this site I have it ranked above Ride and Justice, and dependin on the day I like it better than MoP. Also to ya'll who feel this album sucks, it doesn't. You don't like it but that's your taste. This album is high quality and much harder than credited, it is not fast but that does not mean it's lacking intensity. This is the farthest thing from a mainstream rock album and while I'm defendin the less thrash albums. "Through the Never" "Don't tread on Me" "The God that Failed" and "Struggle Within" are really kick ass tracks off the Black album, I don't understand how people who like metal don't like these songs and could have somethin' bad to say about them.

Shitty, shitty album. But better than Reload or St.Anger, so id put it just above Death Magnetic on Metallica's shittiest albums

''Load'' is more an alternative metal album, mixed with some hard rock. (though it is mostly metal) If you like those genre's, then chances are you will like a lot of the songs on the album. I myself, really love this album. Of course, its VERY far away from their thrash stuff, and if you listen to this album expecting or wanting it to be thrash, then you will obviously be very disappointed with it. I find ''Load'' to be waaaay more consistent than ''Reload''. The only song Ive never liked is ''Ronnie''. Its so boring, and there's nothing memorable about it at all.

Although ''Load'' has been compared to rock, and even pop, it is essentially a metal album. The crunchy guitar sound, coupled with an overall dark lyrical tone seperates it from the stuff normally associated with hard rock bands. Although some songs like ''Poor Twisted Me'', and "Ronnie" do fit into that category. Opener ''Ain't My Bitch'' is like a mix of metal and hard rock, and is very infectious. The slide guitar solo played by Kirk especially, giving it more of a ''rock'' feel. It's also in places, more ambitious than the ''Black Album'', and actually contains 2 long songs. ''The Outlaw Torn'', and the absolutely awesome ''Bleeding Me''. Thus re-injecting some of the prog back into their sound that they had completely abandoned on the "Black Album". The menacing slow burn of ''The House That Jack Built'' is darker than anything on the "Black Album", while the bruising ''Wasting My Hate'' and the catchy riffage of ''Thorn Within'' could easily have been on the previous album. ''Hero Of The Day'' and ''Until It Sleeps'' display the more alt metal elements, but I love both songs a lot. And although I usually loath country music, the raw emotion James puts into the country ballad ''Mama Said'', makes it a great song.

''Load'' to me, is definitely the unsung hero in Metallica's discography. Thrash, it most definitely is not. But the songwriting is crisp, intelligent, and at times just downright amazing. For me, it is without doubt, the best thing to bear the Metallica name outside of the first 4 albums. Definitely an underrated classic.

I absolutely love this album. The best they did after the '80s.

This album is so bad and I think Metallica are asked what is different from past behave.

Written by Jay-WalKeR on 19.06.2010 at 17:25

This album is so bad and I think Metallica are asked what is different from past behave.

So, for you, a bad album still deserves a rating of 8? Or is it only because it's Metallica, so you don't dare to rate it 5 or 6? Because a bad album deserves 4 or 5 no more, in my mind.

Quote:

Written by Lord_Regnier on 19.06.2010 at 17:32

Written by Jay-WalKeR on 19.06.2010 at 17:25

This album is so bad and I think Metallica are asked what is different from past behave.

So, for you, a bad album still deserves a rating of 8? Or is it only because it's Metallica, so you don't dare to rate it 5 or 6? Because a bad album deserves 4 or 5 no more, in my mind.

I mean this was not bad album that points down to do this album.
"King Nothing" and "Until It Sleeps" the only song my favorite album and other songs to these two songs are not attractive. High points that I gave this album only because it was two songs nor anything else. "Until It Sleeps" saw my life changed.

Well I'll second the this being a bad album. Honestly its a VERY boring album when it comes down to it, with a pseudo attempt to sound mean and gritty with a southern edge, but its just done so flatly and blandly that it comes off as just cliche/cheesy. Kind of reminds me of Pantera, just not as well done.
The only song I found any good was "king Nothing", which despite all of its ultra-commercial trappings (and its attempt to sound like Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit") it has nice enough melody to peak my interest. I went into this album planning on giving reload and *gulp* st.anger a try, but seeing as the general concencus is that things go down hill (thats is until Death Magnetic), I really can't seeing myself wanting to go further into the pits of bad.

Good album but not the old school thrash that metallica created

It's not thrash. Get over it.
It's a great rock album, one of my 3 favarite Metallica albums. The other 2 are Ride The Lightning and Death Magnetic.

Written by M C Vice on 18.06.2011 at 05:17

It's not thrash. Get over it.
It's a great rock album, one of my 3 favarite Metallica albums. The other 2 are Ride The Lightning and Death Magnetic.

Really? Death Magnetic over Killem All, MoP, and AJFA? Hell, I like the black album more than Death Magnetic, although I don't hate any of those albums.

Anyways, an interesting album for sure. One thing certain is that it is not continuing the sell out pulled on the black album. If they wanted to, they could have written another arena rock/heavy metal album and not make any musical progression. This album is long, generaly dark, and surely not what anybody would have expected from them. It really flows well as a complete album, rather than a collection of songs, probably their most 'unified' album they've released. I might actually place this album over MoP, which is my least favorite Metallica album of the 80's. To bad Reload sucked.

Written by Guest on 18.06.2011 at 07:45

Written by M C Vice on 18.06.2011 at 05:17

It's not thrash. Get over it.
It's a great rock album, one of my 3 favarite Metallica albums. The other 2 are Ride The Lightning and Death Magnetic.

Really? Death Magnetic over Killem All, MoP, and AJFA? Hell, I like the black album more than Death Magnetic, although I don't hate any of those albums.

To bad Reload sucked.

Because Death Magnetic has more songs that I like than any of the ones you mentioned.
And as for ReLoad, I like Low Man's Lyric, Fixxxer and Unforgiven 2, but half the album sounds like the songs that weren't good enough for Load, probably because they were concieved as a double album, so most of the best ones went on first.

Half of this album's songs are at least decent and some are damn good, but there's some terrible filler as well. Re-Load is the more pointless release of these album twins though.

A masterpiece.

Not the heaviest but probably the darkest album they've done, outlaw torn darkest most epic metallica song ever

For me the best Metallica album...not for stupid metal heads. As always...something musical good without noise is bad:) - their best albums are 'load' and 'reload' but stupid metal heads prefer the same guitar boring things all the time...

Good album but their surelly lost their energy

Written by dark_mar on 01.11.2011 at 23:17

For me the best Metallica album...not for stupid metal heads. As always...something musical good without noise is bad:) - their best albums are 'load' and 'reload' but stupid metal heads prefer the same guitar boring things all the time...

I respect your opinion and i have the same as you for the quality of albums load and Reload. But you really think that there is on this two albums one musics so perfectly consisted and melodic as Orion or the call of Ktulu ?

Written by Guest on 18.06.2011 at 21:17

Written by Angelic Storm on 30.05.2010 at 22:42

I like your analysis of those certain songs. My biggest problems with this album are 1) Poor Twisted Me (boring, awkward) 2) Ronnie (doesn't really fit the album, but it's ok, listenable with a grin on one's face) 3) Cure (decent song, but here the album starts to fall apart). The rest is excellent.

Wow, man. I almost entirely agree with your take on the album. I find tracks 3, 4 & 12 slightly weak/overlong and I've always hated track 6 but I consider this a good, enjoyable album. Close to giving it 8/10, myself. I used to love 2 & 5 but fav songs now are easily 1, 7 and Outlaw

edit almost a year later - now, it's true, I might tend to skip every 3rd song but when all the rest resonate with me so well - when they're all such great, well-written and especially well-performed tunes, (and you might say consistent, cohesive and coherent as the album that it is) I can't help but slap Load with 4 stars out of 5

Love this album. My 2nd favorite of theirs after AJFA. It's not particularly metal, but I can overlook that as the musicianship is great.

It's not terrible, but FAR from great either. There are some cool highlights like "Outlaw Torn", "Hero of the Day", "Thorn Within", and "Until It Sleeps". However there are also some really stupid songs like "Aint My Bitch" and "Ronnie" among others. I'm not sure if the album still holds up, since the sound of James' vocals makes me laugh nowadays and it's been a while since I've actually listened to it, but it might if I ever get back to it.

There are without a doubt better albums out there, but this isn't by any means a "bad" album. There are decent songs, they just aren't thrash is all. I can appreciate this album for what it is, a decent noting special metallica album that sounds cool on a beat up old cassette.

Oh this is boring.

There's plenty of good stuff on this album. Unfortunately it also has its share of filler.

I didn't like this album as much when it first came out. About 3 years ago, I put it on and was surprised at how much I liked it. I'm a fan of hard rock: Monster Magnet and Danzig are two of my favorite bands of all time. I'm also a fan of alternative rock and alt metal. The songwriting and production on this album are really freaking good. Some of the performances from James are a bit off, but not as bad as Reload or St Anger. Getting over the fact that it says Metallica on the cover and embracing it for what it is gave me a totally different perspective.

Back in the day, bands would genre hop. Bob Dylan pissed off his fan base by going electric. Jimi Hendrix was moving from acid rock to R&B-based rock when he died. Miles Davis went from Bop to Modal to Fusion (my favorite of his work) and continued to evolve throughout his career. Led Zeppelin lost a few people with III since it had a few acoustic numbers, but the same type of songwriting is hailed on IV when they fused everything they'd done previously into one cohesive album. Black Sabbath largely abandoned what would be called Doom with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and tried a bunch of different heavy metal and rock styles in the next couple decades.

The point is, anyone who is really an "artist"* of whatever caliber will change as they go along. They might drop a turkey here and there, that's part of the program, but continuing to evolve and try different things is what separates a creative person or group from entertainers.

*I don't really like that term, as it's pretentious, but it conveys what I mean.

A pretty good to great hard rock album in spots, hindered by some filler. Obviously not for people who gloat all over 3rd tier thrash "under rated" bands of the 80s, or start sentences with "If Cliff Burton was still alive...." Just a good hard rock album from a band that was always beyond the "thrash" metal tag anyways.

I love this album. Never really cared what other people think. It has a really heavy sound for a rock album, is well composed, and has some really emotional lyrics. It seems a bit more natural than it's twin sister.

Written by deadone on 24.01.2014 at 00:44

Nowhere near as bad as what people make it out.

Exactly. I prefer this album over Death Magnetic. It is only slightly weaker than Black Album.

Generally Load/Reload should be one album and it should looks like this:

Ain't My Bitch 05:04
2x4 05:28
The House Jack Built 06:38
Until It Sleeps 04:27
Bleeding Me 08:17
Fuel 04:29
The Memory Remains 04:39
Devil's Dance 05:18
King Nothing 05:29
The Outlaw Torn 09:48

Approx 60 minutes long album

Bonus songs:
Thorn Within
Ronnie
The Unforgiven II

Considering the releases from Kyuss, Monster Magnet, and especially COC, I think this album encroaches on the Stoner Metal of the time. Bluesy, heavy, groove based music that recalls stoney music they grew up with. Even some of the gear choices were more classic: Telecaster with B-bender, Les Pauls, slides, lap steel, and more.

For sure, this is a classic album from Metallica's stoner metal era.