MASTER OF PUPPETS

Wow, what an album. While not so extensively progressive as some other artists who identify themselves as progressive metal, this album does have lots of progressive moments among the thrash metal, and it deserves 5 stars not only because of that, but because of its amazing influence on other bands who later developed progressive metal into a genre of its own. It's no secret that this album has influenced Dream Theater, which is probably the most famous progressive metal band out there. And it's proven by the fact that Dream Theater surprised people by playing the entire album one time on tour.

It's definitely more metal than progressive though. There's tiny progressive influences in it, mostly coming from the structure of the songs rather than other things like the use of different instruments, or things like that. But Metallica is a very open minded band, even going as far as playing symphonic metal with an orchestra.

Typically, early Metallica albums start with a song that begins with a melodic intro which flows into an extremely fast, aggressive thrash metal song, and the same is here. Battery is of no real interest to purely progressive fans, but usually progressive metal fans like both prog rock AND metal. Master of Puppets is an extremely famous song among metalheads, and probably inspired interest in progressive music within that group as well. The song includes heavy thrash metal parts, a melodic guitar solo bridge, and progressive instrumental passages, especially following the melodic guitar solo. Then a reprisal of the original tune returns. Sound kinda familiar? Many prog bands do this, where they have a general tune, then flow out of it into an intricate instrumental progression that can last from 8 to 20 minutes, and end up reprising the original tune.

The songs on this album are never just ordinary songs, they all have quite intricate changes in the song structure, mostly tempo changes and guitar solos. For Progressive Fans, the track Orion is of particular interest, it is instrumental, and is both heavy, melodic, progressive, etc. The way Metallica really branches from Thrash metal and brings in other influences is what both makes this album so famous, and has introduced metalheads to progressive music and inspired many progressive metal bands in the future. Amazing album. If you don't like metal, avoid it at all costs, because it is quite heavy. But other than that, a Masterpiece and eternal influence.