Various – Metal Massacre

I bought the re-release on Metalworks US via UK mail order in 1982. I liked Cirith Ungol best, and bought all their albums on import. Metallica came 2nd place, so I bought their debut the same way in 1983, as well as Bitch's 1983 debut album, but didn't really care for it, whereas I shocked my friends with Kill 'Em All they way I'd done 3 years earlier with Iron Maiden's debut LP in April 1980. (It wasn't released here until 4 months later, and most of my 11-months-younger rastaman brother's hardrock friends still listened to Thin Lizzy and UFO when I played Maiden and Judas Priest's 1980 British Steel for them...).

I also bought Ratt's 1984 debut, and also their hit followup, Invasion of Privacy, which I detested. They sounded like Toto or sh*t like that. Also, I caught Metallica LIVE in Lars Ulrich's Denmark at the Roskilde Festival, after a killer set by Filipino-American teenagers Death Angel, in late June 1986. Three months later, I read a small note in my daily newspaper that Metallica's tour bus (no private jets then...) was involved in an accident here in Sweden, and Cliff Burton was dead - just 1½ hrs north of my tiny hometown, and not far from IKEA's HQ and first store (yada yada, yada...). He'd died 1 week after my 25th b-day.

The police reports and witnesses the following days all pointed at the driver, who (quote) clearly had fallen asleep at the wheel (unquote), and was driving too fast under those conditions - invisible "black ice" on seemingly dry couyntry roads and highways, slippery road in the unusually cold winter night, heading south. (In the 1980s, we had real winters with daytime temperatures several years at -20°C (-4°F), and -30°C (-22°F) at night down here in the deep south, just 1-1½ hrs from Denmark, reminiscing older people of the cold WWII winters. As a contrast; 10 days ago, on Nov. 27 (on Jimi Hendrix' and Bruce Lee's b-days, in 1942 and 1940, respectively), we had a +19°C (+66F)...

Well, I got tired of Metallica in '88, but got the brand new Black Album from a friend for my 30th b-day in 1991, and was a fan again. For a year or two...I thought Load was a load of BS.Then I saw them a 2nd time at Roskilde (30 mins. west of Copenhagen) in early July '92 for a wee bit larger audience...but skipped them when they returned in 2000. Blah-blah-blah...

/J, Sweden*

*) An old geezer who prefers stoner rock (Fu Manchu, Nebula, Sleep, Om, Kyuss, Spirit Caravan, Bad Wizard...), British and Swedish prog rock, 70s (heavy) prog, The Residents, Todd Rundgren, Brian Eno, 70s Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream, Leonard Cohen, The Amboy Dukes, Grand Funk when they still were a Railroad, Beck, Krautrock, blues/blues rock, The Legendary Pink Dots, Cabaret Voltaire, Chrome...

PS. Send complaints to [email protected]! Thx.

This is getting reissued! Finally! 4/22/22 according to Rolling Stone...

1st Press with Printmistake "Mettallica" - later Releases with Correction "Metallica"

A true “grail” for any collector of heavy metal music. Great collection of classics and Metallica history. Theirs a really great story behind this release that you can read in Brian Slagel’s book “For The Sake Of Heaviness” The history of Metal Blade Records.