Metallica – Master of Puppets

March 3, 1986 was released Master of Puppets, Metallica’s third album. A look back at the WECB column released the same year.

Metallica took the raw material of heavy metal and refined it from the ground up. Exit the bluster, the boasting and the Dungeons and Dragons-style medieval imagery. Instead of the usual insignificant ejaculatory gestures and popular effervescence, the members of Metallica project the purest apocalyptic terror. Their version of heavy metal is the sound of global paranoia. There are no musical antics that serve as an escape for them, they do not seek to pass off rock as a method of salvation or transcendence. Their all-consuming fury provides a sonic equivalent to the anxieties their words define.

Metallica applies the maxim that nothing succeeds like excess. As proof, the eight pieces of Master of Puppets are completed in just under an hour. Clearly, this group, made up of Cliff Burton (bass), Lars Ulrich (drums), Kirk Hammet (guitar) and James Hetfield (guitar and vocals), has a lot to say. The title track extrapolates the basic metal metaphor that drug abuse is enslavement (“Needlework the way, never you betray/Life of death becoming clearer/Pain monopoly, ritual misery/Chop your breakfast on a mirror”) and suggests that we are tossed by the hand of God.

Then, on “Leper Messiah”, they condemn the poor stratagems of the false prophets. Rather than simply describing them as profiteers, Metallica sees “leper messiahs” as a direct link to the antichrist promoted by a sinister ruling elite. On “Damage Inc.”, Metallica coldly highlights these superior forces, this implacable evil which transforms young men into “Disposable Heroes”. The only refuge is in “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”, which simply explains that for those who have seen the reality of the world, there is always an escape: madness.

Produced by the group with Flemming Rasmussen, Master of Puppets is real. Metallica knows how to hit with enough finesse to create new metal. If ever a “titanium disc” certification exists, it must come back to Master of Puppets.

Tracklist:

1. Battery
2. Master of Puppets
3. The Thing That Should Not Be
4. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
5. Disposable Heroes
6. Leper Messiah
7. Orion
8. Damage Inc.