For this article a bookreview for a book about Metallica simply called: Metallica Justice for all — The Truth About Metallica– by Joel McIver. The book came out in 2004 and covers the years in between the albums: Kill em All from 1983 up and till the St. Anger album from 2003. Here a link to the wiki page of the author: http:///en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_McIver
The author is a diehard fan from the first hour but he remains critical about the band their progress and their music.
The book contains pictures of the different line-ups of the band throughout the years, there is even a picture of the horrific coach crash which claimed Cliff Burton’s life on the 27th of Sept. 1986.
Layout of the Book:
The book starts off with a foreword and introduction which explains the motives for writing the book. After the introduction the book is simply lay-out in chronological order starting with the years before 1980 and finishing with 2003. The book is build up around truth statements which the author explains, analyses and answers in the pages in between these several statements. The statements are: The Truth about Trash Metal, the Truth about Cliff Burton, the Truth about Master of Puppets, the Truth about the Black Album, the Truth about Load and Reload, the Truth about Napster and finally the Truth about Metallica.
Like any book of this content there is a lot of filler, detailed information about tours, a break down of each song for each studio album the band ever recorded, a breakdown for each year with info what each individual bandmember was up to. All this may be interesting for the die hard fan but may not be for everyone.
For most music fans around the world the names Metallica and Napster will sound familiar, the section in the book about this episode may shed some light on the fine workings of the machine called Metallica. It certainly is an interesting read how one band started off a debate about free downloads and the sharing of music on the net.
Personally I find the early chapters of the book the most interesting, which contains the sections about the struggles of the band, the change of bandmembers and the detailed info of American Trash Metal bands in the early 1980s in comparision to the early Britsish bands of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal scene. All of this gave us the roots of Trash Metal and all the other sub genres of Metal we know these days.
Anyone who is a casual fan of Metallica and enjoys intense, heavy guitarbands will enjoy reading these early pages of the book as it gives you a snapshot of the early 1980s history of Heavy Metal bands..
The last few chapters of the book read very much like the contents of the documentary Some Kind of Monster dealing with the new bassplayer Robert Trujillo, the crisis the band found itself in at around 2001-2002 and the release of the St. Anger album and the fans response to the album.
About the music of Metallica I have to say that I find it interesting that some people claim the earlier songs are so much better than what came after the Black Album. Just an opinion I guess. Personally I enjoy all of their work, the songs from the later period may be less heavy and intense, but some of the trade mark riffs and sounds and solos are still there.
If you do have an interest in Metallica give this book a try as you may come across some information you have not heard or seen before.
Enjoy reading and hope to catch you soon again for more.
Cheers,
Eddie