While this album (rightly) gets mercilessly ripped on for completely burying Jason Newsted’s bass in the mix, from a creative standpoint, it’s a fascinating statement if not a wholly successful one. All production debates aside, this release came across as very modern and clean sounding vs what most thrash albums sounded like in the 1980s. Metallica was really leaning into some progressive song structures, weird timings, and some crazy excellent riffage here. Yet, while the band is exploring these progressive ideas, they built up a massive wall of tension without release… meaning the record doesn’t really free the tension at any point. Even the album’s high speed closer “Dyer’s Eve” feels emotionally tight, would-up, and never really resolves itself. It’s one of the oddest releases I can think of from a band at this level of popularity (at the time), but it’s also kind of awesome.
2014 US pressing from the band’s own Blackened label imprint and I hate to say it, but this pressing sucks. It’s mastered very low, devoid of all dynamics, and ultimately a pretty noisy 2xLP release. Probably going to replace it at some point for either an OG press or one of the newer masters which apparently sound much better.
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