groove1's Full Review: ... And Justice For All by Metallica
If you have read any selection of my previous reviews, you may be surprised to learn that I was once a big metal fan, and a lot of that was due to Metallica in the 1980s. Like many other people who have reviewed this cd, it was definitely Metallica’s last speed/thrash metal album. This was definitely Metallica’s last good album as well, though it may not have been their best. After this album, they made, and still make, music that can be marketed to the current high school age generation because, well, they seem to buy the most music.
Ok, getting off my soapbox here and onto the review of the music. “And Justice for All” brought a couple of firsts for Metallica. It was the first full length original album without former bass player Cliff Burton, who had perished a couple of years earlier in a bus crash while the band was touring Europe. Cliff was an amazing bass player and I am pretty sure he would have no part of today’s Metallica. It also contained “One” their first radio hit, which also was their first video (and a pretty good one at that).
“And Justice for All” contained 9 tracks total, many chiming in at around nine minutes, definitely not suitable for radio play. The aforementioned hit “One” was a long song too, but the intro was often cut short on the radio and MTV. Each song was musically complex and had meaningful and mostly intelligent lyrics. The band covers a few topics here but as the title suggests, a lot of it was written as a slant to the government back in the days when the Tipper Gore and the “Parents’ Music Resource Center” were trying to censor a lot of things, mainly heavy metal and rap music. Many people criticize the album for being poorly produced as some of the instruments are not on par with the other ones. I actually love that about this album as it really makes the music sound more genuine.
The album begins with “Blackened”, a song about how we are all destroying the earth and what’s to come if we continue to do so. Metallica was ahead of the current “green” trend back in 1989 and the song is dark, fast, and has some good lyrics such as: “Death of Mother Earth / never a rebirth /evolution’s end /never will it mend” and “In the exit of humanity: color the whole world blackened.” A very powerful song to get the album started off as was a standard for the band.
The title track “And Justice for All” is next and is another awesome song. This song really rips into the US government proclaiming “Lady Justice has been raped, truth assassin. Rolls of red tape seal your lips, now you’re done” and: “the money tips her scales again, make your deal/ just what is truth? I cannot tell, cannot feel.” The music on this song, though not super fast most of the time, is brilliant. The guitar work builds at the beginning of the song until all of the instruments meld together and the onslaught of music and harsh criticism of Uncle Sam continue for nine minutes.
The next song is one that many people will say is poorly produced, with the double-bass drums sounding snappy and hollow, and again is not played 1000 miles per hour, but is still a great song containing lyrics regarding the censorship issues of music at the time. The lyrics seem to be written from singer/writer James Hetfield’s heart and include: “Do you feel what I feel? Bittering distress
Who decides what you express?” and “Freedom of speech is words that they will bend”.
The fourth track on the album as with the previous two Metallica albums is one that begins slow and mellow and eventually builds into a powerful climax. That song is “One” which is based on the book and movie “Johnny Got His Gun”, though the band say they found about the book and the movie after they wrote the song (yeah right). The band purchased the entire rights to the movies so that they could use clips of it as they wished in their video (and the dialogue from the film was left in the viideo too). The song, book, and movie deal with a a World War II soldier who lost all of his appendages and senses while in battle. His only physical sense is touch, and he tries to communicate via Morse code that he wants to die. The lyrics are powerful, the music is phenomanal, but the song has been played a few too many times.
The tempo of the music picks up again on “Shortest Straw” as James again blasts our political system. I may be a little off on this one, but this one to me seems to about someone being accused and concivted of a crime they did not commit. The lyrics that give me this impression are:
“The Public Eyes' Disgrace
Defying Common Place
Unending Paper Chase” …. “The Accusations Fly
Discrimination, Why?
Your Inner Self to Die
Intruding
Doubt Sunk Itself in You
It's Teeth and Talons Through
Your Living Catch 22”… and finally:
“The Fallaout Has Begun
Oppresive Damage Done
Your Many Turned to None
To Nothing
You're Reaching Your Nadir
Your Will Has Disappeared
The Lie Is Crystal Clear
Defending”
Some people think it goes back to the government falsely accusing alleged American Communists during the Cold War, others think it’s about being falsely imprisoned based on one’s race, and all of these relate closely and make for a powerful song.
The next song “Harvester of Sorrow” is next and is a lot more clear in its meaning. The song is about a child being abused by a drugged and alcoholic parent, hence the title. The lyrics “Drink up, shoot in, let the beatings begin/Distributor of pain, your loss becomes my gain” and “All have said their prayers/invade their nightmares/to see into my eyes/ you’ll find where murder lies (infanticide)” make this song as powerful as it is. The music again is fast though not as fast as its predecessor.
The speed picks up on the next track “Frayed Ends of Sanity” which as the title suggests is about someone going insane, possibly due to drugs “old habits reappear/fighting the fear of fear”. This song may be a sequel to the title track of their previous album “Master of Puppets” which dealt with the horrors of cocaine addiction. The song also contains a sample from “The Wizard of Oz” and begins with “"ooh-wee-ooh... oh-oh".
Again, as typical with the previous two Metallica albums, the second to final track is mostly instrumental, except for a spoken poem near the end. “To Live is To Die” was partially written by Cliff Burton and the spoken poem was also written by him:
“When a man lies he murders some part of the world.
These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives
All this I cannot bear to witness any longer
Cannot the kingdom of salvation take me home?”
The lyrics now are eerie seeing how Cliff passed in 1986. The music in the song though is absolutely beautiful and you would not recognize it as a Metallica song unless someone told you.
The final track “Dyer’s Eve”, as was the standard for them, is very fast. This deals with a child whose parents shielded him from the real world and thus had a hard time coping when he had to deal with it. More than likely, this was about James’ own parents, who were strict adherents to Christian Science.
This was the last Metallica album I listened to and enjoyed. Their self-titled follow up in 1991 had them singing about the likes of the boogie man rather than anything intelligible and musically was just lazy. “And Just for All” is a complete album, both musically and lyrically complex and is the band’s best showing of their talent. This is an historic album and the last true Metallica album.
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