Rob Meagher

Simply put- Master of Puppets is one of the greatest albums of all time in any genre. Its hard to believe that a bunch of guys in their early 20s wrote this album. Even if your not into thrash/heavy metal take an hour to listen to this record.

This isn't a terrible album. But it is a terrible Metallica album. James vocals are a far cry from Load, the production levels are amateurish, the snare is too much and no solos just isn't right for this band. Metallica are the biggest band in the world and have been for more than 30 years... but even the greats can sneak in a dud.

This album should be pretty pleasing to most Metallica fans I think. Best album on first proper listen to Black and probably would have been the perfect follow up. They touch on all their styles (bar, thankfully, St Anger) - there's riffs on this album that could comfortably fit of Ride The Lightning, and plenty that could have found themselves on Load as well. It has the deep "dark" sound of Black woven right throughout, there's heavy stuff that wouldn't be out of place on Master and technical sounds that hark back to And Justice. Well done Metallica... worth the wait.

Metallicas most lazy effort and it shows. A few good songs but mostly just B side average stuff here. A real let down... should have just plucked the few good songs from here included them on load and binned the rest.

Metallica fans unfairly rubbish this album but if you take the weaker songs off it, replace them with the strongest off Re-Load you've got a 5 star album. No thrash which is what I think turned most fans off giving it a fair chance but pushing 30 years since it came out its easily one of the best albums of the 90s, even if it's way down the list of Metallica records. And it's still heavy even if not thrashy. There's some stuff on here only Metallica would have the balls to try and only Metallica have the talent to pull off.