Metallica – 72 Seasons (2023) – Review

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Metallica - 72 Seasons - Album Cover

The RMR crew literally had to sift through 72 Seasons of Metallica‘s miscarriages of album art for them to finally hit a new low. We already suffered through things like the piss and blood covers on the Load / Reload series. But this one is the most awful vinyl sheath ever to appear on a metal album.1 I mean, scorched items, including a wrecked crib and miscellaneous instruments on a bright canary-yellow background. That’s like a migraine on painted cardboard. If the folks over at Metallica wanted to annoy everyone and provoke reactions, then – hells bells – … [...] Click to raid more!

Infanteria – Patriarch (2022) – Review

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Thrash Metal and RMR. That’s always been a testy relationship, to say the least. An uneasy experience of ear-splitting ‘yeah’ screamers. A genre populated by masses of he-men who rush through their metal without thought to good songwriting. Or anything actually, apart from playing fast ‘n’ loud without regard to speed limits that could lurk along the way.

But for some, the genre worked out just dandy. And those are the ones that still fill stadiums to this day, even if some of them are way past their due date. Yet, those very same masters of the trade also needed … [...] Click to raid more!

Metallica – Load (1996) – Review

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The 1996 album Load of Metallica really was the red-headed stepchild of my music collection for a long time. It got to be the sandwich in between the self-titled Black Album and Reload with The Unforgiven II. Only Load did not contain anything unforgiven or any excitement that we could write home about.

But is this really so? Did Metallica lose the rudder and compass at the same time, as some of my brethren suggested? Kinda adrift in strange oceans and lost on unknown lands. Hold on to your maps!


Well, perhaps, the fact that Thrash Metal somewhat went [...] Click to raid more!

Metallica – Metallica (1991) – Review

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RockmusicRaider Review - Metallica - Black Album - Album Cover

By Thor, I just realized that this blog never REALLY looked at the folks of Metallica. Okay, we got Hardwired…To Self-Destruct on the menu for sure. The somewhat frugal 2016 offering that only got some grudging claim to fame.

But one of the turning points in their career really spread along a series of albums starting with the self-named record Metallica, also called the Black Album. Back in 1991 the band already had serious action under their belt. Kill ’em All or Master of Puppets kinda rocked them to stardom already.

And yes, I know that we [...] Click to raid more!