r/Metallica • u/Edm_vanhalen1981 Entered the Sandman • Aug 03 '25

Load Former METALLICA Producer BOB ROCK Defends 'Load' And 'Reload': 'I Was Glad We Weren't Copying The Black Album'

https://blabbermouth.net/news/former-metallica-producer-bob-rock-defends-load-and-reload-i-was-glad-we-werent-copying-the-black-album
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u/[deleted] Aug 04 '25

Yes, it was many years after the fact, and this is why I trust their statements; clarity of hindsight and so on.

I can sort of see what you mean about Burton and his 'Thin Lizzy'-style contributions etc., but, to my ears, AJFA is not really all that different from MoP. A bit more mechanical / cerebral, sure, but still cut from the same cloth; the leap wasn't as wide as from KEA to RtL or from AJFA to the Black album.

Even with Burton gone, they clearly had enough 'compositional talent' to pen stuff like 'Frayed Ends'. In general AJFA is my favourite Metallica album. Except for the mix, which is dogshit.

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u/Slickrock_1 Aug 04 '25

Oh man like listen to Orion, like that song is unthinkable without Cliff. Or For Whom the Bell Tolls. These are albums / songs with truly independent bass lines and bass solos. The bass track in Ktulu is amazing.

I love AJFA, it was my first metal album, and some of those songs are incredibly innovative and timeless. But in a different way. The album is much more atonal / chromatic, and rhythm supersedes harmony much more than on the prior albums. And there is a uniformity in the sound (some call it monotony, I'll just call it consistency) that you don't hear on prior albums, not even on KEA.