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 Re
Load, 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.
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