• AllMyVinyl #5
• Band: Metallica
• Album Title: … and Justice For All
• Release Date: 7 Sep 1988
• Date purchased: 14 Jan 2021
• Location purchased: Walmart
• Color of vinyl: Translucent green
• Number of discs: 2
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Full album on Youtube ]

Still no justice for Jason’s bass after all this time.

This was the first Metallica album (of new material) that came out after I had started following them.  I was aware of ’em when Ride the Lightning was current, but I didn’t buy it – so when Puppets came out I checked it out after it was out.  Justice was the first album that came out that I anticipated pre-release.  I was seriously into this – although at this point I was all into CD’s, so I never bought this on vinyl originally.  I picked up this copy from Walmart in early 2021, when they were bundling all the Metallica album re-releases out on colored vinyl in a couple of sets.  This one is translucent green, which they billed as “Dyers Green Vinyl” – all the releases in this series had some silly name for the color of the vinyl.  But it’s translucent green.

While most Metallica fans lump this in with their “classic” era, it tends to be divisive.  People either love it (easy due to the tunes), or hate it due to the near total absence of Jason’s bass – which is so tuned down, it’s nearly inaudible.   They had a chance to restore the bass lines in a re-release that came over this when they did a bigger set, but no.  The original mix remains.  Shame, as I’d really love to hear the album mixed with the bass where it should be.

Having said that, I was all over this album when it was new.  Played the shit out of it.  Saw Metallica on this tour, and it was one hell of a show.  Wasn’t my first Metallica show, but I recall this being a grand thing with the stage set that used artwork from the album cover in its design.

However, the biggest thing to come out of this was the “One” video which at the time was a big deal – they never had a video before that.  That was their first and was a banger.  You were compelled to watch it – despite what was going on.  I know the movie footage wasn’t created for this song, but it fits so well, you’d think it was.  One cool thing about “One” is it’s my wife’s favorite Metallica song.  She’s not a huge metal fan, but she really loves this track.  Our daughter who *IS* into Metal (big into Anthrax) was shocked that our mother liked this song, she had to ask her directly, she thought I was lying about it.  My wife’s not wrong, that’s still a banger of song to this day.

Although not every song on this album has held up.  I was huge into it in 1989 and into the early 90’s, but a couple of decades down the line I don’t think the album as a whole has held up as well.  Perhaps I’m too clouded by the opinion that the bass is missing is floating around in my head somewhere?  Don’t know.  But having said that, I do like several of the songs.  Harvester of Sorrow works for me – as does Blackened.  Then there’s “To Live is To Die”, which works well despite the length – but something about the album as a whole makes me go “eh” in 2024 – can’t quite put my finger on it.  Although I noticed that “Dyer’s Eve” sounded more like the Metallica of the first couple of albums.  Has an angrier sound to it than the rest of the record.

In the end, I don’t reach for this album as much as I used to in the past,.  Not like it’s bad or anything, but I don’t think it’s cream of the crop Metallica anymore – I enjoy other records more.

Admin note: Technically this album would be much further down alphabetically, but my spreadsheet used the … at the start of the name to list it fifth overall just after the pure numbers albums. :)