466 - Metallica Blackened 1988

"And Justice For All" was released in 1988, after what was an extremely difficult time in the personal lives of the members of Metallica. While touring their previous release, Master Of Puppets, their tour bus was involved in an accident that killed their bass player Cliff Burton. This album sounds different to every other Metallica record, vocally gruffer but with thinner orchestration. Drums tick and pop, rather than bang, the guitars sound dryer and thinner, and there’s little in the way of bass. As a record it's complicated, aggressive and hugely technically ambitious (so much so that the majority of these songs have only rarely been reproduced in their entirety live), and contains snatches of some of Metallica's finest work. “Blackened” and “Frayed Ends Of Sanity” stand out in particular, both full of ideas, crackling with aggression and neck-snapping hooks.