Band:	Metallica
Album:	Master Of Puppets
Style:	Bay Area thrash metal
Release date:	February 21, 1986
Guest review by:	Cal Wolvington

01. Battery
02. Master Of Puppets
03. The Thing That Should Not Be
04. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
05. Disposable Heroes
06. Leper Messiah
07. Orion
08. Damage, Inc.

I know I am in the minority here, but I don't care. Coffee is not as bad for you as everyone says it is, ten million Coldplay fans are wrong and Master Of Puppets is not Metallica's best album. This album is considered to be a classic and it is a great effort, but it is no Ride The Lightning. Master Of Puppets may have become more popular than Metallica's first two albums and it may be every critic's darling but that alone does not make it a better album or the greatest thrash record of all time. What matters is the music itself and therein lies my problem with considering this album a mind blowing masterpiece, which it is not.

I can find no better analogy for how Metallica's first three albums sound than their respective cover art: Kill Them All has a murder weapon on its cover, Ride The Lighting has an execution device, and Master Of Puppets simply has graves. This is most fitting, because Metallica's inspiration (with the exception of writing good lyrics) was somewhat dead too by the time they got to their third album. Master Of Puppets does sound epic just like Kill Them Alll and Ride The Lightning, but the epicness is forced this time. The solos, the vocals and even some of those famous riffs lack the true killing spark that made the previous albums so great. Many of the tracks are long for the sake of being long; they outstay their welcome by a good few minutes and become repetitive. While it is undeniable that Master Of Puppets contains some awesome riffs, it is also undeniable that when a good thing is repeated too much, it becomes boring. "The Thing That Should Not Be" is a good example of this. It is a good riff, but when you hear it for the hundredth time, it isn't quite so exciting anymore. The sign of a truly great song is the feeling that you want to hear it again immediately after it's over, only a few songs on Master Of Puppets have this effect and the rest leave one exhausted from the repetition. To sum it all up: professionalism and repetition do not make up for the loss of true inspiration, which is the problem with Master Of Puppets even though - I need to emphasize this - it is still a good album.

The reason for the comparisons to Kill Them All and Ride The Lightning in this review were not to praise those albums, but to point out that Master Of Puppets is not that great for one simple reason: Metallica's previous albums demonstrated that they could do much better than this. Master Of Puppets will no doubt remain a favorite for most Metallica fans, for this reviewer it will remain a good, but somewhat disappointing follow-up to two thrash metal masterpieces.