Blood, Semen and Grunge
Where second 2x4
is immediately into a Black Sabbath riff - occasional thrash metal growls
updating the template - it has been hammered out in the solid steel of years
before, but third The House Jack Built
has been grunged, even if the chug chug chug of that metal motif prevails, and
it is this narrowed eclecticism of The Heavy that makes Metallica who they are
and this description confined to its necessary platitudes.
1996’s Load has
been loaded from the foundry that supplies all requisite ores, even if a
Frampton talk box seems to get an anachronistic voice inside Jack’s house.
Fourth Until It Sleeps is the
ballad-into-thump-into-harmonies that is another of the Metallica trademarks,
Hetfield’s by now established vocal distinction one more flyer in the Kite. Fifth
King Nothing is headbang-ready: not too
fast to cause concussion; not too slow to seem geriatric. It is the perfect
pace. I know because I am doing it.
Sixth Hero of the Day
is the slow, slow-burner, a song that allows Hetfield to sing’n’snap as he does
with his vocal, whiplashing at word-endings, or alternatively elongating on a
vowel sound – either way it is a part of his distinctive singing style. Seventh
is half-way through the album’s set, and Bleeding
Me is a return to a grunge sound, great guitar work running through the
song, both rhythm and lead and especially at about 4 minutes into its 8 minutes
where it has gradually climbed to its Metal plateau. Later, the wah-wah wails
over machine-gun drums and cymbal crashes. Then it winds down to its grunge
drawl.
The album continues in similar and it is a long album at
just under 80 minutes. The gentler pace [a relative term] does make it a
potential slog, depending on whether you are more into your thrash Metallica
than this incarnation. There are divergences, like eleventh Mama Said, the acoustic number via
Jethro Tull and a tinge of Country, and closer The Outlaw Torn at nearly 10 minutes is more of the grunging that
has dominated and on this track it does seem like the band had run out of ideas
but persevered out of some strange grunge-hypnosis, even though guitar wails
and squeals do eventually liven things [and should have stopped there – but didn’t…..].
It does make the ‘blood and semen’ of the album cover, apparently real, the
more rock’n’roll of the whole, though there are fine enough moments throughout.
I’d have to listen again, but I think on reflection I prefer 97’s Reload, and I don’t imagine I am the
only one.
