Things have never been easy for Metallica’s 1996 album Load, a multi-platinum record nobody ever admits to liking, especially the band’s most avid fans. In early 1995, Metallica had a ‘good problem’: how to follow up The Black Album, the 1991 smash that turned them from metal heroes into global rock stars. It wasn’t an easy question. Featuring their mega-hit “Enter Sandman,” The Black Album was Nineties metal’s Dark Side of the Moon, the moment when an already stadium-filling band became a household name. Then, in the middle of the three-year tour to support the incredibly popular record, grunge became the lingua franca of mainstream rock, forcing them to reconsider their place in music.
The answer? Lean into the issue by cutting off all their hair, throwing on eyeliner, and releasing the strategic change-up Load, which is now being reissued as a remastered double LP, a triple CD and a truly massive, multi-LP/15-CD/4 DVD box set, which includes discs of demos, B-sides, alternate mixes, complete concerts, a documentary, and a 128-page book. All together, there’s 245 unreleased tracks in the deluxe box. (The Black Album also received such excessive, boxset treatment, but that’s a record that sold 30 million copies worldwide.)
Produced by Black Album helmer Bob Rock, Load’s long-term legacy has been mixed: Plenty of old school Metallica fans hated it, and it didn’t quite have the earworms of their 1997 follow-up Reload (partially written and recorded at the same time). But with James Hetfield’s deeply personal lyrics and the band’s simpler, non-thrash songcraft, Load was easily Metallica’s most genre-diverse album to date. “Until It Sleeps,” a Nineties rock radio classic where Hetfield rages about his Christian Scientist mother’s struggle with cancer, is impossible to imagine without the influence of Nirvana’s song structures and raw-wound emoting; it was also the band’s first Number One single. “Mama Said” and “Ronnie” scan as Southern rock, while the nearly 10-minute album closer “The Outlaw Within” is one of Hetfield’s more complex looks at death and pain in a catalog full of them.
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The weaknesses remain: Load clocks in at 78:58 and you feel it. But despite confusing (or even scandalizing) some of their fans, the album sold over five million copies, which isn’t bad for a serious argument starter. It wouldn’t be the last time Metallica shifted their sound to meet the times; their 2003 LP St. Anger owes an awful lot to early-2000s nu metal. But Load still feels like their most shocking swerve away from the sound their fans expected.
The two extra CDs on the 3CD version are comprised of highlights from the massive box set, which is both as much Load as any fan could want and a concerted effort to make a case for the album. (Though the box covers the years 1995 to1997, Reload is not included.) Five “Shadocast” CDs are given over to riffs, demos, and detours. “Wasting My Hate” shows Hetfield finding the vocal melody instead of singing lyrics. The guitar doubling take of “Streamline” (aka “Wasting My Time”) and especially the on-off opening of “The Outlaw Torn” isn’t miles away from the metal-adjacent math punk that was happening in the indie-rock underground the same time this was being recorded. The B-sides and rarities are a reminder that covers (lots of Motorhead) are a vital part of the band’s story, while “Until It Sleeps (Herman Melville Mix),” a 1996 B-side produced by Moby is a reminder of the more willful side of open-minded Nineties style-mixing.
There are three complete shows in the deluxe version, as well as tracks from warm-up club dates and soundboard highlights from various live dates. All three are uniformly excellent, including their headlining set at Lollapalooza in 1996. (After fans threw garbage at Pavement in 1995, it was pretty clear the flagship alt-rock fest needed bigger acts.)
Speaking of covers, they were also crucial to Metallica’s skill as a live act as well. Their version of UK punk band Anti-Nowhere League’s funny, crude “So What” was a regular concert opener, and kicking off their set at the 1995 Monsters of Rock festival with a ripping rendition of Welsh blues-metal band Budgie’s “Breadfan” was downright inspired. Hetfield is a tremendous frontman. Bassist Jason Newstead is a vigorous presence, Kirk Hammet’s guitar solos remain creative and thoughtful, and Lars remains a singular drummer.
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This collection also includes a booklet with essays from producer Bob Rock, photographer Anton Corbin, cover artist Andres Serrano, and more, including a surprisingly long piece from Newstead, who left the band in 2001. It feels oddly generous of Hetfield and Ulrich to give him such a loud voice in the reissue, but then again, we also hear from several managers, a Danish promoter, and the Metallica archivist who put it together.
Whether as a doorstop box, remastered single album, or three-CD overview, Load remains a reminder of a very specific musical moment, when the various competing versions of rock remained a subject of vigorous debate: Metallica threw on some make-up and stoked the flames.
