The opening track from Metallica's ...And Justice For All album, Blackened deals with the subject of global environmental destruction.
The opening 0:37 is a slow fade in of layered guitars. Then the drums kick in and a guitar riff ups the tempo, the drums joining in at 0:47. It all merges onto the chugging metal highway at 1:14. The cruise control is turned on and away we go. James Hetfield unleashes his angry man rhymes at 1:22:
Blackened is the end winter it will send
Death of Mother Earth never a rebirth
At 1:44 there is a downshift into Fire to begin whipping dance of the dead. Lars Ulrich does some double bass drum kicks. It all sounds like some kind of violent flaming tornado, burning everything in its path. After another pass around verse and chorus, at 2:35 we chug into a new section filled with passing road signs that warn us the death of life is ahead:
Opposition Contradiction Violation Mutilation Cancellation....no rest stops for the next zillion miles.
Really intense stuff: See our Mother put to death, see our Mother die. At 4:07 we cruise ahead through a desolate valley of demons who bombard us with fireballs and curses. This is what we get for not taking care of the planet. At 4:32, Kirk Hammett unleashes a raging solo that leads us further into the wasteland. At 5:02, Kirk turns on the turbo boosters and we race past the demons at breakneck speed. We can barely control the vehicle as we come out of the valley at 5:34. The rhythm is all discombobulated and we bounce all over the place. We get back on track at 5:51 and Hetfield looks through the rearview mirror:
Millions of our years in minutes disappears. What a ride. Many listeners complain about the sound of the album, the clicky drums, the way the bass is buried in the mix, but the level of musicianship, sophistication and complexity makes it hard to be too critical. It's a great album.
No comments:
Post a Comment