Garage, Inc.

To put it simply, I love this album. If you like Metallica at all, there's probably something here for you. Granted, there's less of the progressive stuff a la Load and Reload, but I was never a big fan of that anyway. (Although Turn the Page and Loverman are awesome.)

Looking at my jewel case now, Bob Rock's name isn't on the back. On the discs it says "Somewhat produced by Bob Rock with Hetfield and Ulrich." I've been trying to figure out why Metallica went from metal gods to media darlings, and as near as I can tell it's because Bob Rock sucked. "Somewhat produced," with its suggestion of lacking quality may have been the best thing that happened to this album. The quality is inconsistent, Hetfield lets out a giggle when someone jumps the gun on a note in Loverman, there's a...Bob Seger cover (cooler than it sounds), and that's just disc 1. Disc 2 is a big collection of covers (16 songs!), and one of the few CDs in my collection I can honestly say I like start to finish.

People who aren't really into the Load/Reload era will find a lot to love, people who are perhaps need not apply.

I really, really wanted to give this a positive review, but I can't. Individually, the songs on here are fantastic, especially the cover of Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" and "Whiskey in the Jar." As an album though, the band shifts styles dramatically from track to track, making it extremely difficult to listen to straight through. It sounds like I played it on random.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a decent album. I would have just liked to see it flow a little more smoothly.

I like this album better than their early thrash albums like "Kill 'em all" and "Ride the lightning". "Garage Inc." is itself a thrashy type album, but I just found the music more engaging than on those other albums. It doesn't have any great songs, like "Fade to black"-an all time classic song from "Ride the lightning"-but the songs are what I would call "listenable". Of their early albums, I think that "Master of puppets" is their best. The good songs on "Garage Inc." aren't of that quality either, but hey, if you like heavy metal, "Garage Inc." will please. There are lots of heavy metal type sound modules in it-that is, certain lead guitar type sounds, rhythm guitar sounds etc, which are classic 'heavy metal'.

From the first cd-which includes covers of songs by Black Sabbath and Nick Cave-my favourite songs are:

Whiskey in the jar-it's this song which got me interested in buying this compilation. There was an Australian radio station which had a listener poll of the top 2000 odd songs of all time, and this song made the cut. It's a cover of Thin Lizzy's version, from what I've heard. Not a big Thin Lizzy fan, so hats off to Metallica to doing something I can appreciate with this song.

Tuesday's gone-a respectful, bluesy, country ballad, for the most part. Has accoustic guitar, steel string accoustic guitar and it also features a harmonica. So, this album is not just purely aggro thrash metal...there's some stylistic variety to it.

The second cd is superior to the first, I think. My favourite songs from that are:

Am I evil-has occultish lyrics (I don't tend to associate Metallica with BS lyrics, but this compilation has the kind of lyrics which you associate with the dark side of metal...but not really to an extreme extent). The song has some baroque and intricate fast lead guitar work. The intro also has a Black Sabbath vibe to it, despite being a Diamond Head song originally.

Breadfan-the riff is similar to the one in that great Red Hot Chilli Peppers' song "Around the world". The Peppers song is newer though, I think, so maybe they've heard something like this song previously. There is a change of pace in this song which reminds me of Metallica's original instrumental "Orion".

So What?-this song is really in your face and a lot of fun. By a punk band I've never heard of before: "Anti-Nowhere League". The lyrics are relatively shocking, even now, so I suppose it would take courage for Metallica to sing this song nowadays! It has real punk rock attitude and the language to go with that. If you're a teenager, this is the song to either make sure your parents never hear you playing, or to play this song just to spite them.

Overall, the sound quality on this cd is excellent (in stark contrast to the sound quality on my favourite Metallica album, "Reload"). Occasionally a couple of songs don't sound very hi-fi, but it's not as bad as, say, The Moldy Peaches debut cd, which takes that lo-fi sound to a whole different level.

The booklet which comes with this cd has very lengthy notes on the compilation, and the picture of the band in cover band mode is good for a laugh too.

If you like thrash metal, punk rock, and the bass guitar, I think you will like this album.

Just a couple of notes I made on some songs from this album:

Last caress/Green Hell-a nihilistic punk song veering into a frantic thrash song. Has an out of whack version of Iron Maiden's intro to their all time classic song "Run to the hills" for the outro.

Damage case-the intro reminded me of Wolfmother's riff for "Woman". Wolfmother won a Grammy for heavy metal or something a couple of years ago, I think.

Too late, too late-reminded me a bit of AC/DC, guitar sound wise.

Anyway, here are some heavy metal albums I highly recommend and have reviewed here (most of them):

Metallica: Reload/Master of puppets/Self-titled

Coldseed: Completion makes the tragedy

I thought that this was a great buy especially considering it gave me a better idea of where one of the greatest bands drew its inspiration. Everything from folk style songs (e.g. Whiskey in a Jar, Turn the Page, and Tuesday's Gone) to wupass heavy songs (e.g. So What, Am I Evil, Blitzkrieg) to the excellent cover of Queen's "Stone Cold Crazy" are all some of the great variety you can see here. Many complain that Metallica became sellouts for ditching their traditional thrash, but I think this goes to show that they wanted to become more accessible by crunching human stories into some of their later work instead of singing constantly about revenge, death, and chaos like countless other metal acts.

Though the first disk has the more recent songs that vear into the style of "Load" and "Reload," the second disk contains all the B-sides and covers from their earlier career as is noticeable by James' higher vocal range. I think there is a little bit of everything to get a taste of from this set for anyone with an open mind.

Side 2 of the Second record in this 3 LP album doesn't play right. James Hetfield sounds like one of the Chipmunks and the band plays so fast it sounds like they're on Speed. There must have been a mistake at the factory because I had Amazon replace this album for me and the 2nd copy did the exact same thing as the first one! So, I asked for a refund. That was a very sad moment for me. I really wanted to hear Metallica's tribute to Mercyful Fate on Vynil...

If you really want Garage Inc. on vynil, wait until Metallica re-issues it sometime in the near future. They're doing that with all their albums in celebration of Kill'em All's 25th anniversary.