MASTER OF PUPPETS

The one thing we are not going to do here is discuss what this band is doing on our site. We have our forum for that and I think that is a good rule. But just about as I say this I realize this is more or less the bands most "progressive" effort at least prog (metal) related that is.

The album starts with Battery and does it in a quiet way with some acoustic guitar in the beginning. This doesn't last long because the rest of the song is a nice piece of metal (3,5). Next up is the title track and this is one of the songs that made the band famous. Here it's the other way around. The song starts metal-like until at 3.40 a quiet passage starts and lasts for appr. 1,5 minutes. The rest of the track is again more metal-like.(4*) Third song is The thing that should not be and is a heavy song throughout, sounds pretty ok to me (3,25*). Welcome home (sanitarium) is another one with a slower more quiet start getting heavier later on. There's quite a bit of melody here (3,5*).

The B-side: (oh excuse me, this is the digital of course), the 5th song is Disposable heroes is a song about war and begins with an instrumental part before it ends up in a more or less Metallica standard, but this standard is pretty high as far as I'm concerned. Nice guitarwork by Hammett (3, 75*). Leper Messiah is the least impressive of the album to me but is still a very good song (3,25*). Next is instrumental Orion and maybe one of the songs that made them deserve a place on PA because Orion is one of the most progressive songs I know by this band. Great track (4*). Last but not least is Damage inc., a fast metal track, also sounding very much ok to me (3,5*).

All in all a great album and I found out one of the if not the most favourite for the fans. Counting all ratings/8 I come to an average of 3,6 and knowing the significance of this album for the bands history and for metal in general I have no problem rounding it up to 4 stars.