MASTER OF PUPPETS

I'm pretty sure that Master Of Puppets was my album introduction to Metallica back in the late '90s. By that time I had already heard some of their hits like Enter Sandman, Nothing Else Matters and Master Of Puppets. Up to this moment my expectations were on the all-time high considering what everyone around me raved about the early Metallica albums and most notably this particular release.

The album began on a high note with the heavy shredding Battery followed by the masterful title track. This was easily the highest point of my Metallica fandom craze since things would only go down from here on. The Thing That Should Not Be and Welcome Home (Sanitarium) wound the album down after the two first tracks and it was a welcoming change of pace even if these performances weren't on the same level of enjoyment for me. Little did I know when I heard the first sounds of Disposable Heroes that it would be the make it or break it track for me here. Widely considered to be one of Metallica's greatest achievements described on Wikipedia as a composition that lyrically deals with ...a soldier's thoughts, actions and experiences at the war front... and that it's known for its ...long duration, extremely fast tempo and aggressive, sixteenth-note machinegun-like riffs. To tell you the truth, I just wasn't that impressed by neither the instrumental nor the conceptual themes of Disposable Heroes.

The lyrics come off sounding very amateurish and not that profound as many of my friends seem to suggest. The whole idea of a worth of a soldier's life is has been done to death, especially as a backlash from the Vietnam War and the imagery painted through the lyrics sound hollow to me. I see it as a song about a profound subject just for the sake of sounding smart and rebellious. I don't intend to compare James Hetfield's text-writing skills to those of Peter Gabriel or Peter Hammill, but even on it's own merits it still doesn't work for me. As for the instrumental arrangements it's just a heavy hitting Thrash Metal tune without anything too noteworthy except the ridiculous chorus melody and lyrics that make me cringe whenever I hear them. Leper Messiah also lacks anything worth a while for me but at least the band managed to keep things a bit shorter this time. Orion returns the quality of the album to above average even though the comparison to The Call Of Ktulu from the previous album is nonexistent.

I guess that it's not that big of a deal to give this album an average rating on a progressive rock site, but back in the day I received a lot of backlash from my metalhead friends for not even pretending to I like songs like Disposable Heroes. Weird how these things can be when you're a teenager. Oh well, at least I stuck to my guns which motivated me to explore other bands outside the norm of the environment surrounding me, so I'm definitely not sorry for it!

***** star songs: Battery (5:13) Master Of Puppets (8:36)

**** star songs: The Thing That Should Not Be (6:35) Welcome Home (Sanitarium) (6:28) Orion (8:25)

*** star songs: Disposable Heroes (8:15) Leper Messiah (5:41) Damage, Inc. (5:31)

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