... AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

Unbelievably, i am the first person to rate (or at least to write a review about) this Metallica masterpiece and, quite possibly, one of the firsts progressive metal albums ever. At ... And Justice for All, Metallica goes far beyond then they have ever been before and after in musical complexity and quality, since their releases since the Black Album can be called many things but metal, prog or both, and the band could not reach the same level as before the Black Album so far, though Death Magnet is a step in the right direction.

In ... And Justice for All, Metallica consolidate what they started to build in Master of Puppets and definitively reach the prog metal standard. To do so, they made their music more elaborate and complex, but without changing their style too drastically, just like the pioneers of progressive metal in their transition album, like Queensrÿche, Death, Fates Warning and Savatage, and the metal bands of today that became prog when they became complex, like Symphony X and Blind Guardian. Maybe the band that is closer to Metallica in this sense is Death, because, like Metallica, their music is riff-to-riff based, with occasional solos. The complexity and elaboration can be also proved by Lars Ulrich, who said that they don't like to play the songs from this album because they are to difficult and demand lots of rehearsals.

Also, this Metallica phase (Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets and ... And Justice for All) is incredibly influential among the progressive metal bands, specially the duo MoP and AJfA. Dream Theater, for example, said many times that Metallica is one their biggest influences (that can be seen even more clearly in Mike Portnoy's drumming style).

About the songs, musicianship and other features, there are somethings i would like to state:

The instrumental work in ... And Justice for All is exceedingly good for thrash metal standards and very good for any kind of metal or prog metal standards. All the instrumental work is just very good, including the bass by the newcomer (at the time) Jason Newsted. The only problem here, in my opinion, is the James Hetfield pronunciation, which is far from perfect.

The highlights go to Blackened, ... And Justice for All, One, To Live is to Die and Dyers Eve.

The lyrics are the usual Metallica lyrics, criticizing things from the family lifestyle to government, justice, war, and society.

Grade and Final Thoughts

With breakthrough compositions, for thrash metal, clear prog influence and awesome songs, i do think this albums deserves to be rated as a masterpiece, after all, this is Metallica in its finest hour (literally, because the album is almost one hour long).

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