Album Review - ...And Justice for All by Metallica
Hey all! As you know i’ve been reviewing Metallica albums and last time i’ve reviewed Puppets, and now’s time for Justice. AJFA is the fourth studio album of Metallica, and the first album featuring bassist Jason Newsted after Cliff Burton’s unfortunate passing in a bus crash, may he rest in peace. A song in the album, To Live Is To Die, was dedicated to Cliff. Let’s get to the review.
The Review
I think AJFA is a great album! It’s not as good as Puppets or Lightning but that’s more because those albums are perfect than Justice is bad, it still is an amazing album. Justice is the most technically complex album out of their first 4 albums. It takes the complexity of Puppets and pumps it up a notch. It’s still generally aggressive, but I think it’s less aggression in the sense of adrenaline fueled anger and more aggression in the sense of hate, despair and hopelessness, if that makes sense. That’s the general theme of the sound of this album – despair and hopelessness, and I think it conveys the theme pretty well. The album has good variety, and while pretty much all songs in the album convey themes of hopelessness, that doesn’t mean they all do it in the same way. For example, One and Blackened are both songs that deal with hopelessness (specifically humanity’s hand in the destruction of the planet in Blackened and the pain a completely crippled soldier with basically no way to communicate anything faces in One) but they sound drastically different.
One thing you may have heard about this album is that the bass is almost inaudible (except for To Live is To Die of course) and I do think that’s the case. You don’t really hear a lot of bass in this album, but it wasn’t a big issue for me personally.
P.S, not related to the music but I think the album cover is great.
Overall, And Justice For All is an amazing album. While it’s not as good as RTL or MOP, it still is awesome and I highly recommend you listen to this album, it’s a damn good one.
FINAL VERDICT: 9/10