Rating: 
Summary: To Live is to have this album
Review: This is honestly a KICK @$$ album! After loosing basest Cliff Burton(may he rest and headbang in peace)Metallica has showed they can retaliate and come back stronger and louder. This album is filled with epic songs that range from 6 minutes to 9 1/2 minutes. With MetallicA's first music video "One" which shows a 70's cult film with people screaming "should I kill myself" shows the fierceness of Metallica. The god(Kirk Hammett)'s solos in this go from melodic to "holy s***, how is he doing that"!!!!!! I think the guitar and the lyrics in this album is somewhere along the lines of pure intelligence and pure insanity. You cannot be "sane" and write these lyrics. in my opinion this album is pure genius! To live to the fullest u need this album!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: The beginning of the end......
Review: There are two bands called Metallica. That's right, two! They have the same members, except one of them has Cliff Burton on bass, and the other has Jason Newstead on bass. The one with Cliff Burton has an awesome sound that is designed to showcase the considerable talents of each member, and poignant song lyrics about serious topics to make you think. Songs like Santatarium, and Escape. The one with Jason Newstead has a much more banal sound that is still considerably hard, but the first thing one notices is that the music itself is different. Songs like I Disappear and Bleeding Me. Hetfield can still tear up a solo, but it's as if they think their talents don't matter, or they don't have to show them off, or something. Whatever the case, they are two bands with most of the same people and the same name. They are two bands and the first one is dead. This album is what started that death, but only slightly. The death was completed with Load and Reload. Cliff died in a bus crash in Sweden. It was a terrible tradgety both personally (to those who knew him) and musically. This album in particular, their fourth studio release, is still an awesome showcase of James Hetfield's talent for songwriting. Each and every song on here is an all out ballad of meaning and poignance. Blackened and One are the best ones, both message-wise and musically. The title song is the best for meaning only. The problem with this record is the music. It's hollow. It's empty. The all out thrash sound is gone. Did they purposely do it? Perhaps, but I think that without Cliff's influence, the band's sound began to take a turn for what I think is the worst. This record really began the different direction. The problem with it? It's just not good.Blackened - This song is about the downfall of the environment. The sound is excellent, but unfortunately it promises a sound that doesn't continue. And Justice For All - This song is about the corruption of the court system. Excellent lyrics, but the music is downright boring. It's disorganized, and seems to change randomly to have an all out muddled sound. After the badass rythm of the first song, this one put me to sleep, literally. Eye of the Beholder - This is a little better. The song is about point of view and interpretation. Great opening, but still kind of iffy. One - Now this is excellent!! The music is awesome and the meaning, I can't even say how beautiful this song is, for meaning! It continues the band's strong anti-war message that they've sung about for the previous two records. For Whom the Bell Tolls was good musically, and Desposable Heroes was the king for meaning, until now. The Shortest Straw - This one is all right in itself, but the muddled sound is back. It's about prejudice, and lyrically it does quite well. Harvester of Sorrow - This song seems to be about being driven to madness by drugs. The lyrics are okay. The music sounds good for a while, but it gets real slow. It kind of trudges along, like everything else. The Frayed Ends of Sanity - This song is just as slow and sludgy as the previous one, and it's two minutes longer as well. It seems to be about descending into madness. The lyrics are all right. To Live Is To Die - This is the traditional instrumental song. It has one part with words, but they're spoken. They were written by Cliff I assume, since this song is the only one on the album that has his name credited to it. It begans softly, like funeral music, and then turns into a dirge of heavy sound. It seems better than the last two songs (which seemed like filler to me) but it's still just as slow. At times it seems haphazard, but by the time I got to it, my mind had achieved a sort of numbness. Dyer's Eve - This song is about anger towards parents. Lyrically, it's pretty good, but it's nothing from their old records. It begans hard after the procession of the previous song, but it's still haphazard. It's nice to have a hard song to close with, but it's such a violent attack message-wise, that it left a bad taste in my mouth. All in all, Jaymz can still tear it up, but the rest of the music was a kind of plodding trudge that was such a change from their previous sound that I was disappointed. The lyrics are awesome, but don't save it, unfortunately. Jaymz has never actually SANG before this record, and he still doesn't, but perhaps that would have made the slow dirge sound good. After Cliff passed away, the band began to sound more and more different, until they are a second band in my mind. This is what started that trend.
Rating:
Summary: THE PINNACLE OF METAL!!
Review: I remembered how Guitar Player magazine reviewed this album, "Back breaking!" I totally agree!! In the heavy part of "Blackened", the band becomes one and is the heaviest, most violent force I've ever heard. The title track is a musical masterpiece, "One" became a radio hit while still maintaining integrity, and "Harvester Of Sorrow" delves into James' mind regarding personal struggles. Incredible! It's sad to say, but I think Cliff's death had a lot to do with this album being so powerful & brutal. Personal turmoil seems to bring the best out of musicians. Better than "Puppets"! (Yes, I really think that)
Rating: 
Summary: Lyrically Strong, Yet Lacking In Quality
Review: All things considered, it would have been very tough for any album following "Master of Puppets" to receive 5 stars. The expectations set by that album of greatness would be too tough to live up to. This was made even harder when Cliff Burton, Metallica's expert bassist, died while on tour for the "Master of Puppets" album. His replacement was Jason Newsted, another excellent bassist, but struggling to live up to Burton's lofty standards. Still, that is no excuse for the production to be so murky. The production cuts down on bass, as you might expect, but it cuts down so heavily that you begin to wonder if it's a three-man band. Compared to the glittering "Master of Puppets," this is very shoddily done production-wise. However, this does not detract too much from the way the songs were written. After all, this is Metallica, people. There are no secrets behind those guitar chords, this is just great, loud music, and it isn't meant to be anything else. That being said, I will say I still took a star off for the production quality, which added a bit of the sameness to the songs. On Metallica's "Master of Puppets", every song had its own way that it stood out and made you listen, particularly on Side 1, probably the best album side in the history of heavy metal, short of maybe Side 1 on "Led Zeppelin IV". On "And Justice", there are only three songs that truly stand out from the murky pitfall of the production, and the reason one of them does is was because it was an instrumental that was the last track Metallica did with Cliff Burton. However, Metallica seemingly makes up for it. They were easily at their lyrical peak on this album; this was their most political period. The lyrics are not only strong, they are now powerful, and they had, by this time, learned how to make the music fit the lyrics. James Hetfield is also in prime form on this album, maybe even better than on "Master of Puppets." "Blackened", "Eye of the Beholder", "Harvester of Sorrow", "The Shortest Straws", "The Frayed Ends of Sanity" and "Dyers Eve" are all great songs. While "The Frayed Ends of Sanity" is one of the best song titles of all time, the song fails to deliver. These songs just fall too much into the mold of everything else. Metallica tried too hard to extend their songs on this album, and as a result, with only nine concepts expressed in sixty-five minutes, you can end up repeating yourself a lot. However, now let's get to those three other ones. "To Live Is To Die" is an instrumental that was the last song Metallica ever did with Cliff Burton. It has a great song title, and it is a pretty good song although I was surprised the production quality was not improved too much for this one. It is overlong though, as it is near ten minutes---it's not good when the longest song on your album is an instrumental. It is only one second longer than the title track. I love the fade-out. However, now we get to the two gems. These two songs could easily earn this album three stars if all Metallica played was polka music for the rest of the album. They are track 2, "And Justice For All", and track 4 "One." The former is Metallica's 2nd best ever idea of how to make an epic (falling just short of "Master of Puppets"), and the latter is THE best song Metallica has ever done, barely beating out "Master of Puppets". "One" is track 4 on this album, meaning that it is again the slow ballad, but it doesn't stay that way. There are, count 'em, THREE, great guitar solos in this song about a soldier who has had everything taken away from him because of the war. At around 4:30 or so, the way the song effortlessly moves from a gripping ballad into a thrilling headbanger is nothing short of breathtaking. This was the song that finally got Metallica to do a music video, and it may have caused "The Black Album," which, though different, isn't necessarily a bad thing. I could easily program my CD player to put those two tracks on repeat for hours and not get bored. They feature the best guitar solos and guitar concepts that Metallica has ever dreamed of. If you are new to Metallica, I do not recommend starting with this at all, instead try "Master of Puppets" or "The Black Album." If you love Master of Puppets and the song concepts to death, get this. If you, however, love it only for the music and wish the songs were shorter, go back to earlier in their career. And if "The Black Album" is too heavy for you, forget this. While certainly not the highest point of Metallica's career, it's worth buying just for "And Justice For All" and "One" alone.
Rating:
Summary: The last one
Review: Last worthwhile album from these guys before they became duds. It ain't no Master of Puppets but it is better than the garbage they put out now. Lars is a lamer c ya
Rating:
Summary: For Metallica, "Justice" would be the pinnacle of their art.
Review: Few bands can so utterly dominate their genre as Metallica did in the mid to late 80's. Quite simply, if you were a teenager into heavy-metal between 1985-90, then you were a Metallica fan. I was just such a teenager, and I worshipped Metallica. I can still remember the day that "...And Justice for All" came out. I hated it. But, because it was Metallica, I kept on listening, and listening. Before long, I fell in love with this album, and I would see the band 3 times on the "Justice" tour alone--hey, I even managed to be down in the very front for a couple of the shows and received the most coveted prize in all of Metallica fandom: James Hetfield's beer cup. With "Justice" Metallica had reached the peak of "Metallica-ness", if that makes any sense. THIS was the band that they were meant to be. Jason Newstead had just joined the group, the band had dipped in to their own pockets to cover the cost of a double album so that the fans who only had a turntable and not a CD player or cassette deck would not have to pay extra for the vinyl LP, and James Hetfield's Fu-Manchu was starting to take shape. Now, most fans--and the band members themselves--love to point out how "shoddy" the production values are on this record. Indeed, Metallica repeatedly complains about how unhappy they were with "Justice". I think otherwise, and perhaps I am the only one in the world who does. The truth is, very few bands have the guts take actually take a step backwards in production values from one album to the next. When they do, the result is usually a great album. If anything, most bands tend towards increasingly complex production from album to album causing most fans and critics to look back longingly at a band's first album--which was probably very underproduced--as being that band's finest work. Was Stevie Ray Vaughn's "Couldn't Stand the Weather" better that "Texas Flood"? Was the Cult's "Sonic Temple" really better than "Electric" or "Love"? Getting back to "Justice"... Lyrically (sp), this is clearly Hetfield's finest hour. We find him matured and thoughful, leaving behind the adolescent subjects of "Phantom Lords" and "Leather Steeds" of his earlier works. Musically, and I am a guitar player myself, the guitar work on "Justice" is the most interesting of all. After playing guitar myself for 20 years, I still really can't execute the main riff to "Blackened" properly--might help if I actually practiced. Moreover, Hetfield takes guitar harmony into some interesting new directions. There just hasn't been anything quite like those guitar harmonies before or since. The ONLY thing I would change about this album is the level of Newstead's bass. There isn't any, and it's ridiculous. After "Justice" Metallica would go on to become Superstars. What followed was a watered down version of the band. True, they captured more "market share", but in the process they dilluted the product. "Justice", however, is the real thing. The "Black Album", though, was an opiate, Metallica Lite.
Rating:
Summary: This is the Alblum
Review: I am a very big fan of Metallica and to me this is one of the heaviest metal alblums ever done. This alblums music is head-shaking, lose your senses loud. The ferocity of the music is unparalelled by any metal alblum realsed in 1988 (and there were many of them). This alblum was the alblum responsible for hooking many of todays Metallica fans, and the song that done it was One. One is a song unlike you have ever heard. The song conjures up thoughts of pain and agony. Most of the new fans of heavy metal will feel pain and agony after listening to this alblum, but it will be from headbanging fun. The songs are very political and yet very poetical. The bands of today, who sound the same, are put to shame by this music. Get it!!
Rating:
Summary: WHEN METALLICA WAS METALLICA
Review: While many Metallica fans call this Metallica's "concept album", and others say this is where Metallica began to "sell out", I see it differently. Yes the production [is questionable], but thats what makes this good. The [questionable] production makes the entire album sound raw (like on Kill 'Em All), and I couldn't imagine the songs on this album to sound any differently. "One", "To Live is to Die", and the title track are true epics, while "Harvester of Sorrow" and "Dyers Eve" just plain old rock with Metallica's trademark 80's thrash sound. This may be where Metallica began to enter the mainstream, but it is an excellent album, and every Metallica fan should have it.
Rating:
Summary: Second best Metallica
Review: This is in my opinion the second best Metallica album (after Master of Puppets.) The Black album is the third. This is probably the heaviest album by the group. The guitars are absolutely amazing. The drums are not much but they fit in with the guitar sound. I don't hear that much bass in here. Maybe none at all. The vocals are probably the best behind Master of Puppets. Each song has an explanation. The production is not well but you don't want it overproduced like the later albums. It sounds fine to me. And this album has "One", the best Metallica and one of the best songs ever, overall. One, is the alone reason to buy it. But there is plenty more on here. Eye of The Beholder and Harvester are two more radio hits. All tracks are good. Not a single "crap track". I'm a fan of the 80's Metallica. I prefer both Master of Puppets and this over Kill Em All and Ride The Lightning. They are alot mature in Master and Justice. Buy this CD!!!
Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: easiley Metallicas best album. every song is great. Harvestor of Sorrow is my favorite song. The beginning riff is sweet. They need to go into the studio and re-record this because I'd love to here it in digital.
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