vikingman369 : 20/20 | Probably the best Live album of Metallica's discography ever. There might be pretty explosions in Cunning Stunts, and there may be no slow, bluesy music in Live Shit, but S&M is just really epic!
Why is it epic? First of all, the combination of two genres of skilled music (metal and classical) is good when dOne right. When dOne perfectly, it can be a masterpiece. Which is exactly what this album is. Let it not be said that Metallica's only source of fame are the slow, bluesy, "radio-friendly" hits from Load and ReLoad, because the Live performance of Ride the Lightning's "Call of Ktulu" won a Grammy Award for the Best Rock Instrumental Performance (I'm sure that pissed Dave off).
Song number two happens to be the song I don't like, but its dOne ten times better here. James is actually singing rather than barking/screeching, and his laugh at the end is more menacing than reminiscent of some playground Aryan bully.
Everything else seems to fit perfectly into this album. Even "The Thing That Should Not Be" becomes a chilling masterpiece of insanity, thanks to James Hetfield and Jason Newsted.
The new songs "No Leaf Clover" and "Minus Human" are splendid, as is the entire performance. What I have against this album is that they should have used either "The Unforgiven" (I or II) and/or "Fade to Black" rather than "Outlaw Torn".
Does the band play well? That would be an understatement. The singing, dOne primarily by James Hetfield with backing vocals by Jason, is splendid. The guitar-playing is at its best, even from Kirk "wah-pedal" Hammett. I enjoy listening to every single song from this album.
Unfortunately, Metallica did it first so we may never get to see what it would have been like if Megadeth played with a symphony. Sorry Dave.
2010-10-16 00:00:00
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