{"id":521336,"date":"2026-06-27T14:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T14:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/521336\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T14:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T14:41:09","slug":"metallicas-reload-super-deluxe-edition-box-set-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/521336\/","title":{"rendered":"Metallica’s ‘ReLoad’ Super Deluxe Edition Box Set: Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDo you want alternative? Do you want alternative? Metallica<\/a> gives you alternative, bay-bee!<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the early-Nineties alt-rock explosion, bands that had made it big in the Eighties largely pulled their hair out trying to fit in<\/a>. U2 went disco<\/a>. Guns N\u2019 Roses spent about 25 years chasing Chinese Democracy<\/a>. And Metallica? Well, they just got weird \u2014 and, contrary to popular belief, that wasn\u2019t a bad thing.<\/p>\n

\n\tNeither of the quartet\u2019s Load albums, released in 1996 and 1997, sound overtly \u201calt,\u201d since James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett\u2019s riffs owed a greater debt to the blues and Lynyrd Skynyrd than shoegaze or Pixies. But they achieved a simulacrum of \u201calt,\u201d at least for headbangers, by playing with a looseness that still feels like a rejection of the white-knuckle thrashing that earned them their legend. Hetfield had learned to honest-to-God sing on 1991\u2019s Black Album, which is when they began to smash the shackles of metal puritanism.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat chill attitude helped them shake free some interesting debris, most of which they\u2019ve finally collected in their weighty new ReLoad box set<\/a>, which contains five LPs, a seven-inch, 15 CDs, and four DVDs of Metallica at their most avant-garde (at least until they met Lou Reed). It\u2019s a 12-pound time capsule of the unconventional.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo just how \u201calt\u201d do you take your Metallica? How about a banjo-driven acoustic reworking of the Misfits\u2019 horror-punk massacre \u201cLast Caress\u201d with Blues Traveler\u2019s John Popper honking harmonica all over Hetfield\u2019s crooned vocals about gory violence like it\u2019s some perverse Anytown, U.S.A. barbecue? How about DJ Spooky imbuing \u201cFor Whom the Bell Tolls\u201d with trip-hop breaks, illbient echoes, and reverso-wah on Cliff Burton\u2019s iconic bass line? How about Rob Overseer overlaying Dave Grohl\u2019s \u201cSmells Like Teen Spirit\u201d drum break on \u201cEnter Sandman\u201d? How about heaps of photos of the guys with haircuts, guyliner, and nail polish, and CD booklets sodden with semen, blood, and piss<\/a>? A few years earlier, on \u201cNothing Else Matters,\u201d Hetfield sang, \u201cOpen mind for a different view,\u201d but he never would\u2019ve predicted just how wide his mind could open.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tEven though many Metallica fans pretended to loathe the Load albums, headbangers came out for them. Load was a Number One seller in 1996, and its comelier evil twin, ReLoad, repeated the feat a year and a half later. Old heads will still sneer when you mention \u201cMama Said\u201d (a country-fried, sentimental ballad fired off in Load\u2019s first round) but if you separate Metallica 2.0 from their thrash-purist origins, you can appreciate how the holy spirit of the alternative movement guided them to record innovative songs with legacies that still reverberate throughout rock radio.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith 29 years of hindsight, ReLoad is the better of the two Loads, because Metallica took extra time to diversify their sonic palette. The quartet had worked on both albums concurrently, hoping to release everything as a double album. But with tour dates looming, they polished off 14 songs and rushed out Load. For fans, the first listen was like a hard-rock cold plunge. Its best songs brooded (\u201cUntil It Sleeps,\u201d \u201cHero of the Day\u201d), trundled (\u201cThe Outlaw Torn\u201d), and offered unfamiliar whiplash (did tough-guy Hetfield really just sing, \u201cIt\u2019s time to kiss ass\u201d in the background of \u201cAin\u2019t My Bitch\u201d?). But they did not seek and destroy, at least like they used to, and it was still a straightforward hard-rock album. ReLoad showed a more nuanced side to the band\u2019s reinvention.<\/p>\n

\n\tBeginning with \u201cFuel,\u201d a punky barnburner with a pummeling riff built for stadium fist-pumping, ReLoad now sounds like the act of a band running on piss and vinegar (and every other intoxicant they were imbibing prior to Some Kind of Monster). Marianne Faithfull\u2019s bleating on \u201cThe Memory Remains\u201d still sounds chilling. \u201cWhere the Wild Things Are\u201d and its creepy, Alice in Chains\u2013like vocal harmonies sound darker than Metallica\u2019s heaviest fare. \u201cCarpe Diem Baby\u201d may be their best groove-rocker, period, bolstered by a swirling bridge that sounds like Joni Mitchell rendered hypermaximalist. And \u201cLow Man\u2019s Lyric,\u201d that delicately grinding waltz with accompaniment from a hurdy-gurdy man, sounds now like Metallica\u2019s \u201cSad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands\u201d (but sadder and lower and with absolutely no ladies).<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tAs with Load, which got an even bigger box set<\/a> last year, there\u2019s still a lot of filler here. \u201cThe Unforgiven II\u201d and its exorbitant \u201cthe\u2019s\u201d (\u201cIf you can understand the me\/Then I can understand the you\u201d) is only marginally forgivable. The stomping riffs and growls of \u201cDevil\u2019s Dance,\u201d meanwhile, portended the landscape of generic post-nu-metal bands like Godsmack and Disturbed. \u201cAttitude\u201d lacks, well, attitude, especially since the hook goes, \u201cWhatever happened to sweat?\u201d As with many double albums (ahem, GN\u2019R\u2019s Use Your Illusions), Load and ReLoad have the songs between them to make up a single four-and-a-half-star album, had Metallica judiciously whittled down the track list and immersed themselves in their newfound other-ness.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe group\u2019s musical soul-searching is what gets most attention in the ReLoad box set. A sticker, like the one on the original Load that reported the album had 78:59 of music (the total capacity for a single CD), says this one runs 1697:47, or about two hours less than the Load box. The box set also includes colorful posters, Rorschach ink blots (how very Nineties!), guitar picks, and a hardcover book. Nothing can prepare you for the album art writ large on the inside flap, but the lavish haircut photos galore and commentary from folks like producer Bob Rock and then-bassist Jason Newsted are illuminating. \u201cOverall, these many years later and after my re-engagement with ReLoad, I still feel victorious \u2026 I did what I came to do. We did what we came to do,\u201d Newsted writes. (One complaint: Where are the insights from Hetfield, Hammett, and Lars Ulrich?)<\/p>\n

\n\tSome of the most interesting material can be found in the tidbits and demos of songs as the quartet figured out how strange they could get: the ghostlike backing moans on the 1995 mix of \u201cFuel for Fire\u201d (later titled just \u201cFuel\u201d), Faithfull\u2019s hair-raising vocal outtakes, Hammett\u2019s noise textures on the \u201997 rough mix of \u201cThe Memory Remains,\u201d the monk-like guttural chanting on \u201cSkimpy,\u201d the \u201cCarpe Diem Baby\u201d demo, the sheer heavy Neurosis-like power of \u201cBastard \u2013 \u2018Bad Seed\u2019 Riff II,’\u201d the Robert Smith-like guitar on the \u201cMine Eyes\u201d (\u201cLow Man\u2019s Lyric\u201d) demo, the way the Diamond Head-meets-Skynyrd obsession that led to \u201cThe Four Horsemen\u201d also produced ReLoad\u2019s \u201cPrince Charming.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe collection\u2019s four \u201cShadowcast\u201d discs collect these moments and related apocrypha like unused bluesy guitar solos, versions of songs with alternate lyrics, and other oddities that show just how far down the rabbit hole Metallica went between the 1995 sessions for both Loads and their return to the songs in 1997. But the best of Metallica\u2019s strange and unusual detours lies in the collection\u2019s two \u201cPoor Acoustic Me\u201d discs, which collect the group\u2019s performance at Neil Young\u2019s Bridge School benefit in 1997 \u2014\u00a0check Hammett\u2019s bluesy solo on \u201cLast Caress\u201d here \u2014 and some odd acoustic performances for radio.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe group\u2019s 1997 appearance on KSJO, which captured them jollying up \u201cLast Caress\u201d with Popper, finds them playing with members of Alice in Chains (a year after the \u201cFriends Don\u2019t Let Friends Get Friends Haircuts\u201d<\/a> incident), Primus\u2019 Les Claypool on banjo, Chris Isaak (on \u201cNothing Else Matters,\u201d of course), and Skynyrd\u2019s Gary Rossington. Everybody sounds happy, and it\u2019s all so bizarre, so eclectic, so Nineties.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tThe big rock concerts included on several CDs and DVDs also capture the moment well. Hammett\u2019s avant-garde sound design on the Load and ReLoad songs finally gets a spotlight thanks to the rawness of the live mixes (check any \u201cThe Memory Remains\u201d or \u201cBleeding Me\u201d for Hammett\u2019s ear candy), and it\u2019s fun to hear Metallica quote music from both \u201cMrs. Robinson\u201d and \u201cHighway Star\u201d in the opening jam to the Ministry of Sound show. Metallica\u2019s songs have always taken on new dimensions live, and everything from Load and ReLoad sounds bigger here.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou can hear (and see on the DVDs) how excited the musicians were to play the new songs and how they sometimes sounded bored on the older songs, with Hetfield indulging ironic vocal sneers at times. (How bored were they? Well, they condensed their first two albums into a \u201cKill\/Ride Medley,\u201d and they gave \u201cMaster of Puppets\u201d a Friends haircut by shearing off the middle section and everything after.) Mostly, though, they had fun discovering new sides of themselves.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tBut this didn\u2019t last. Even though the albums sold in the millions (Load is quintuple platinum, ReLoad quadruple platinum), Metallica noted their fans\u2019 disdain and attempted to correct their course by going back to their roots, literally, with the covers record Garage Inc. in 1998, repackaging their original Misfits and Diamond Head covers alongside newly recorded renditions of hard-rock and metal songs (including the \u201cTuesday\u2019s Gone\u201d they recorded at KSJO), and a Nick Cave cover. Then came 2003\u2019s St. Anger, a near total breakdown, Rick Rubin, and Metallica\u2019s own thrash revival.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new albums have been thrashy and great, and Metallica have largely distanced themselves from the Loads, keeping only \u201cFuel\u201d and \u201cThe Memory Remains\u201d in active rotation on their set lists. But they still get weird occasionally with acoustic shows and gigs with symphonies<\/a>. Relistening to ReLoad and everything that surrounds it now supports the clich\u00e9 that you must lose yourself to find yourself. Love it or hate it, though, when Metallica lost themselves, they found themselves more truly and more strange. And they will never sound that way again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do you want alternative? Do you want alternative? Metallica gives you alternative, bay-bee! After the early-Nineties alt-rock explosion,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,669,278],"class_list":["post-521336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-metallica","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}