...And Justice for All (CD - 1988)

Recorded at One To One Studio, Los Angeles, California between January & May 1988.

Personnel: James Hetfield (vocals, guitar); Kirk Hammett (guitar); Lars Ulrich (drums).

Audio Mixers: George Cowan; Michael Barbiero; Steve Thompson .

Audio Remasterer: George Marino.

Recording information: One On One, Los Angeles, CA (01/1988-05/1988).

Illustrator: Pushead.

Photographer: Ross Halfin.

The most immediately noticeable aspect of ...And Justice for All isn't Metallica's still-growing compositional sophistication or the apocalyptic lyrical portrait of a society in decay. It's the weird, bone-dry production. The guitars buzz thinly, the drums click more than pound, and Jason Newsted's bass is nearly inaudible. It's a shame that the cold, flat sound obscures some of the sonic details, because ...And Justice for All is Metallica's most complex, ambitious work; every song is an expanded suite, with only two of the nine tracks clocking in at under six minutes. It takes a while to sink in, but given time, ...And Justice for All reveals some of Metallica's best material. It also reveals the band's determination to pull out all the compositional stops, throwing in extra sections, odd-numbered time signatures, and dense webs of guitar arpeggios and harmonized leads. At times, it seems like they're doing it simply because they can; parts of the album lack direction and probably should have been trimmed for momentum's sake. Pacing-wise, the album again loosely follows the blueprint of Ride the Lightning, though not as closely as Master of Puppets. This time around, the fourth song -- once again a ballad with a thrashy chorus and outro -- gave the band one of the unlikeliest Top 40 singles in history; "One" was an instant metal classic, based on Dalton Trumbo's antiwar novel Johnny Got His Gun and climaxing with a pulverizing machine-gun imitation. As a whole, opinions on ...And Justice for All remain somewhat divided: some think it's a slightly flawed masterpiece and the pinnacle of Metallica's progressive years; others see it as bloated and overambitious. Either interpretation can be readily supported, but the band had clearly taken this direction as far as it could. The difficulty of reproducing these songs in concert eventually convinced Metallica that it was time for an overhaul. ~ Steve Huey

Following the tragic death of bassist Cliff Burton, Metallica regrouped with Flotsam & Jetsam bassist Jason Newsted to record this ambitious double album. Metallica made their reputation playing complex music at superhuman speed, and when James Hetfield's lyrics caught up with his compositional skills, the band became a force to be reckoned with. Everything came together on 1986's MASTER OF PUPPETS, and JUSTICE picks up where PUPPETS left off.

Utilizing intricate yet crunching riffs, layered guitar melodies and intelligent lyrics, Metallica forged an identity as the leader of '80s metal. Hetfield's lyrics are often quite dark, touching on injustice (the title song), insanity ("The Frayed Ends Of Sanity") and his own troubled childhood ("Dyers Eve"). They also had a progressive streak a mile wide, as shown in the involved arrangements that often brought the song lengths close to 10 minutes. JUSTICE also marked a turning point for drummer Lars Ulrich, who began replacing his off-kilter playing with a more straightforward groove approach, and for the band, who made their first video (for "One") and thus scored their first hit. minimize