REVIEW: Metallica – …And Justice For All (1988)

METALLICA – …And Justice For All (1988 Elektra)

As I cast my mind back to 1988, the omnipresence of Metallica’s …And Justice For All cannot be ignored.  For one thing, the band’s new studio album was a double album, which was all but unheard of at that time.  The cover art was striking.  The band were now on TV, after stubbornly avoiding music videos for years.  “One” was the name of the song, and it was even more stark and impactful than the album art.  If the band wanted their first-ever music video to be influential and monumental, they succeeded.   However despite all the praise, the cries of “sell outs!” echoed on the “letters to the editor” section of various rock magazines.  How dare Metallica make a music video.  One letter in Hit Parader magazine compared Justice to Bon Jovi.  It’s hard to imagine a reaction like that from the perspective of today, but as much as Justice was Metallica’s most successful album to date, there were thousands of fans who resented them for it.

The other elephant in the room is the production and mix of the album, which is brittle and lacks bass.  There were various stories, such as hazing the “new kid” Jason Newsted by removing the bass, but today Lars and James largely blame themselves, saying their hearing was burned out and they just kept turning everything up until you couldn’t hear the bass.  There are other stories and other parties who received blame at various points of the timeline, but the thing is this:  Justice has sonic issues.  We all are aware of this by now.

Let’s dig into this hour-plus album and hear what the fuss was all about.

A backwards guitar harmony fades in from the start, a striking and cool effect.  Then immediately the riff and drums kick in, and the snare is loud.  It dominates the mix, with the riff itself chugging away behind.  James Hetfield awakens the dead, and this could have been his vocal peak, in terms of grit combined with sheet lung power.  “Blackened” is a blast, like Metallica of old, and though the pace is breakneck to start, it soon switches up to a deliberate march.  Lars is absolutely bangin’ away, and there are so many wicked riffs and licks that you’ll want to go back and take notes.  This is a textbook course in writing metal, with a dose of complexity and catchy challenges.  Kirk Hammett really plays some cool stuff in the solos as well, demonstrating his experimental side just a tad.  “Blackened” is the only song on the album with a Newsted co-writing credit.

The title track is second, almost 10 minutes in length and loaded with riffs and tempos.  Hetfield growls like a beast of the social ills of the world.  Lars’ drum parts are almost out of the jungles.  It’s a cool track, undoubtedly powerful and a peak for a certain kind of Metallica track.  They had come a long way from their New Wave of British Heavy Metal / punk rock hybrid sound of old.  But, much like Iron Maiden at the same time, Metallica were becoming more interested in progressing musically.  You can actually hear some bass on this track ,and Jason’s really playing some wild stuff.

At this point of the album, we’re getting acclimated to the frigid cold mix and brittle guitars.  Kirk’s wild solos are an anaesthetic to the constant cutting of James’ rhythm guitar.

On vinyl, this is where side one would have flipped to side two, opening with “Eye of the Beholder”.  Cool, underrated opening riff to this song, and again Lars sounds like a jungle beast.  James is singing lower, but with the same ferocity.  Lyrically, James tapped into the angst and frustration that their fanbase felt in their lives.  He was able to articulate for them, the things that they were seeing in their world.  And they were pissed off.  Kirk’s solo comes from a more exotic locale, but fits in regardless.

“Beholder” ends somewhat abruptly, and then the opening machine gun fire of “One” announces the arrival of the coming hit single.  The clean guitars that open the track actually sound pretty good, though the snare drum is a sharp contrast to them.  Though not Metallica’s first foray into softer tones of metal, “One” was top-notch.  There’s no need to go into details on the lyrics as that could be a post unto itself.  Like many classic metal bands before them, Metallica took inspiration from literature, though via a film interpretation.  The anti-war word resonated with the audiences of 1988.  The video, using dialogue and visuals from the film Johnny Got His Gun, was all but universally lauded.  As a song, “One” doesn’t need the video to stand up.  It builds until it eventually turns into a musical battlefield, with machine guns made of bass drum hits, and explosions from snares.  Then Kirk’s solo tells a story of its own, a manic tale of fight-or-flight tension.  “One” is every bit as good as they say it is.

This is where vinyl, or even cassette, has their advantages.  This is a good place to give your ears a break, at the end of side two.  Ear fatigue will set in if you don’t take a moment here!  So, on your CD player or streaming service, take a pause.  For vinyl, just keep flippin’.

Side three opened with “The Shortest Straw”, another hammering riff, and then Metallica take it for a twist.  Hetfield is barking mad on this one!  It is not the most memorable of the Justice nine, but it doesn’t play it simple or safe either.  The chorus is one you can shout to, and Kirk’s solo is certainly unorthodox.

“Harvester of Sorrow” became a concert standard, and it is a bit of a needed slower moment after the brutality was that “Shortest Straw”.  The riff is simpler, more deliberate and to the point, and melody is present in the vocal growls!  It’s one of their more accessible moments, but for some irate Hit Parader reader to call stuff like this “Bon Jovi” is utterly ridiculous.  It’s slow but stomping.  James’ vocals would still raise the dead.

Side three’s closing track is the lesser known “The Frayed Ends of Sanity” and I still hate that “oh-wee-oh” bit (“March of the Winkies”) from The Wizard of Oz that opens it.  Totally out of place, and I could swear New Kids on the Block or somebody like that used the bit in one of their songs too.  Anyway.  The band never played it live until 2014, making it the last song from Justice to make it into the live set.  That’s not to say it’s a bad song – there’s a really cool middle section that just builds and builds, and then unleashes an absolute monster of a riff, like Iron Maiden on speed.

The final side features Cliff Burton’s last writing credit, “To Live Is To Die”.  Almost 10 minutes in length, this largely instrumental track features the appearance of the Metallica acoustic guitars, which soon give way to robotic hammering and a monumental set of riffs.  Solo work by both James and Kirk is extraordinary.  There are left turns, and it all serves to set up the closing blast of “Dyer’s Eve”.

“Dyer’s Eve” is a thrash blast of metal; so fast that it’s the only “short” song on the album at 5:12.  It comes in suddenly and after a brief cascade of metal madness, and goes full thrash, pedal to the metal, all burners on full.  It’s so much, packed into such a short space.  It’s one of the most effective songs on the album for that reason, and a bit of a cult classic.  “Dyer’s Eve” is one of the deep cuts that just scream for more exposure.

Justice is a trip, a journey, a series of chapters in a larger story.  It deserves the scrutiny given to its mix but conversely, it also deserves as much attention as your ears are able to pay to it.  Despite the lack of bass, there are things here your mind can dissect down to some brilliant performances if you give them the focus.  Justice is not an easy listen, but they don’t all have to be.  The cool thing with it is, as you grow with it over the years, different songs become your favourites.  Maybe 30 years ago, it was “One” or “Blackened”.  Then after a while, maybe “Beholder”, then “Dyer’s Eve” and “Shortest Straw”!  The album will never cease to have favourite moments if you love Metallica.

It would be easy to give it a 5/5 stars, but the issues with the bass cannot be ignored.

4.5/5 stars

56 comments

    1. Thanks man. This album is needed to see how they got to Black. They simply got tired of trying to prove how many riffs and tempos they would squeeze into 10 minutes. Instead they said “What if we did one riff for 5 minutes…”

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  3. Great review, Mike. I’m a fan of this album but strangely I didn’t get into Metallica until quite late, after 2000, in fact. Just to explain, although I was in high school when Metallica appeared on the scene, I don’t remember hearing of them back then or even knowing anyone who was into them (although I could be forgetting something, it was a long time ago…). My personal friends and I were more into what some call proto-Metal or Hard Rock (Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Rush, etc.), and the Metal Kids I knew were into Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, and so forth. I don’t remember exactly when I started getting into Metallica, but when I first got their back catalogue and listened to it (until then I think the only song of theirs I knew was “Enter Sandman”) I saw them at the time as in some respects as a North American analogue of Iron Maiden, and enjoyed your comparisons in that vein in your review.

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    1. I got into Metallica in 1996!

      Thanks for the comments! I was in grade school, grade 8 as I recall, the first time I heard of Metallica. I never heard their actual music until the video for One! I only knew them by rep. I knew all the band members’ names, but not one song!

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  4. Here is the hill I will die on, ‘No one complained about the mix until people stopped listening to Justice on stereos’. Back then, you wanted more bass, you turned the bass level up. Now, everyone listens on phones and computers, AKA crap Hi Fi. James and Lars wanted a particular sound, and they went for it. The result is a full/thicker sounding metal album than 99% of what came out in ’88-89, IMHO. Now St. Anger on the other hand…

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    1. Well, James and Lars are primarily the ones who are saying their hearing was blown out and they are to blame for the bass situation. It was what they wanted them, but not really what they “would” have wanted, according to them.

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      1. Yep, I’ve read that several times. It is an answer to why the bass is low. (Which it is.) I don’t recall or read anything saying the mix was bad until about 20 years ago. Right as the quality of listening devices overblew the issue. Just my opinion.

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        1. I noticed depending on the interview, and the year, they lay blame at different feet.

          Who knows what really went down — I doubt it was “hazing the new guys” as was the popular theory!

          And definitely, you can adjust your bass on a medium to decent audio player and compensate! When you can hear the bass, it’s quite well played!

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        3. Agreed. Nobody really recalls the exact details of what happened. Kind of like Black Sabbath. Different stories about Live Evil, Born Again, all dependent on the who/what/when of the telling.

          There’s no way Metallica sabotaged their own album.

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        6. They were total dickheads to Jason, but I don’t think they’d go so far as to sabotage their album just to spite him. You can hear the bass on the Garage Days Re-Revisited EP.

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    2. It’s funny, a mate of mine who was a teen when Justice came out, reckons that ‘sound systems back in the 80s were so crap that no one noticed the lack of bass cos most of the albums, no matter how well produced, sounded tinny and thin’. Seems like a fair point. When I first heard AJFA, it was a cassette in a crappy walkman and it sounded fine to me!

      As far as why the mix is as it is. There’s the technical side to do with frequencies and the placement of instruments as well as the fact that Jason, basically, just played the guitar lines and his tone wasn’t great. Also, and possibly the main reason, Lars and James wanted guitars and drums up front. They wanted it to sound like it was. There was a mix done by one of the mix team with the bass in it and he got told to pull it down.

      Whatever the reason. it’s certainly a statement and it did provide the catalyst for the next stage of their career.

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      1. That’s an interesting take, and I think he is partly right. Many kids played cassettes on crappy “boom boxes” which may have had a simple bass boost or something, but still didn’t have the best sound quality. But, I doubt many of them were writing
        reviews for the latest Metallica release in magazines. Why didn’t any of those writers say the mix was bad?

        Jason’s tone being off is possible but it doesn’t seem likely. I fully agree with your ‘main reason’ as it makes the most sense to me.

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        1. I think that’s what he was aiming at to be honest. Gear was pricey and most had cheaper set ups with only the basic Bass/Mid/Treble EQ bands…. which eve then only really did a tiny percentage of their advertised job! :D

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        5. They became my passion when I realised that I could record live band rehearsals on them by simply plugging a microphone into the mic port. Winner!

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        4. Can you send me a sample from the upcoming Rock Star Heaven story you wanted me to contribute to? I just want an idea of how I should write it.

          Liked by 1 person

        8. And I think you already cleared your band members with Harrison if I’m not mistaken?

          Things are moving nicely, Snowman and 80smetalman have their ideas. As usual I’ll paste it together at the end

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        9. I actually haven’t picked yet. I suggested Harrison pick Christopher Lee, but it’s too late for him to do that.

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  6. LOVE this review, Mike! Very well written, and I’m right there with you: I love this album.

    Kinda sentimental for me, as it’s the first Metallica album I remember buying, way back in the day. I think I told you about it: It was at a pawn shop for 25 cents and didn’t have any cover art, but I was like “Doesn’t matter, I need to have this!”.

    As for the bass issues, have you ever listened to the fan-made mixes that are floating around? “And Justice for Jason” or “And Jason for All” depending which one you fall on, lol. They’re kinda fun to hear, just for the whole “What if?” aspect, but after all is said and done, I still want to back and listen to the original, because that’s the one I know. That’s the one I’ve come to love over the years.

    I think the only thing we disagree on Mike is that I actually love the whole “Oh-wee-oh” intro on “The Frayed Ends of Sanity”, LOL! I don’t know what it is, it just makes me happy every time I hear it. I just love the way the chanting suddenly morphs into this heavy guitar. Perfection, lol!

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    1. You might feel different about the OH-WEE-OH if you were assaulted with the New Kids version!

      Here’s my thought on remixing with more bass: That’s fine. But 10/10 times, I always go back to the original mix of any album. Why? It’s the one we know and love, warts and all!

      I can say this about Marillion, Kiss, Dio, or any other band who has remixed an album.

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  8. Another great review Mike! Metallica are my fav band but I fear actually trying to review their catalogue. I worry it would just be thousands of words of me just gushing about how great it all is :D

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  9. Ahhh a lot of memories when I think of this album.

    When I first got it, it was the first four tracks that got played regularly. And as you said, as time goes by, other tracks become favorites because in reality I burned out on my favorites.

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      1. I really got into the instrumental.

        How it drops out into a radio sounding guitar at the 5 min mark still gives me goose bumps.

        And I started to appreciate Dyers Eve more after The Unforgiving and The God That Failed. It’s like a trilogy for me.

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  10. ‘…And Justice for All’ is the first Metallica album I bought with my own money, so this one has a special place in my heart, even though I don’t play it as often. Jason Newsted was great in Metallica, regardless of how low he is in the mix for ‘…And Justice for All.’ However, I wish he had more albums to shine. After this one, all he had was the Black Album, ‘Load,’ ReLoad,’ and ‘Garage Inc.’ The latter being a covers album.

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        2. While a very unpopular opinion, I’m sure there are other people out there that feel the same way about ‘Load.’ Heck, there are probably people out there that feel the same way about ‘ReLoad’ and even ‘St. Anger.’

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