My route to Metallica was pretty much the same as a lot of kids. Older kids at school were into them, they formed a school band, and played "For Whom The Bell Tolls" and "Seek and Destroy". Their cover of "Am I Evil?" was also popular.
Master of Puppets made its way onto the common room tape deck (yes, it was a while ago). I wasn't used to songs lasting so long. Sometimes we'd only get to the interlude when others demanded that "awful noise" was turned off, replaced by whatever crap was popular back then.
At this point, Cliff Burton had passed, "Cliff 'Em All" had been released and I was able to borrow it from a friend. I had begun learning to play drums, and was already able to do a passable attempt at "Am I Evil?"
Seeing the band "live" (on video) cemented my desire to play the drums for real, in a band. Lars became my hero overnight - I'd never seen a drummer like him.
I also wanted to learn double bass drumming (the next day, I raided my savings account and bought a double-bass pedal).
And, last, but not least, I was definitely getting their next album.
"...And Justice For All" had been played on the local radio rock show (1 hour a week, every Wednesday). A long, drawn out track, at the end I felt more relief than anything else. This stuff wasn't as upbeat as the songs I'd heard before. But, I was still dead set on getting the album as soon as I could. I just hoped that AJFA wasn't the best track, because I wasn't sure I would like the rest of it.
I think I got it (on cassette) within a couple of days of its release, courtesy of a now long-defunct popular high street retailer which sold pretty much everything. The fact you could pick up a thrash album, turn round and get some pick 'n' mix sweets, and, if you so desired, buy some stationery and household goods in the same point, was faintly amusing.
I had an after-school job, so it was quite late when I got home. I think it was a Friday night. So began the ritual of placing the tape into the cassette deck, and perusing the inlay card waiting for the first track to start.
This usually meant looking at lyrics and looking at any pictures of the band. At this point I knew who each of them were. There were head shots of the individual members, all in black, and a band photo, with them all wearing sunglasses. Of all the members, James looked the scariest, especially in the "Hammer of Justice" artwork. A far cry from the world of pop, where the singer was usually the handsome one!
At first I though there was something wrong with the tape as there was just silence. Then I began to hear what sounded like feedback. Ah, its guitar..wow this is cool, and kinda scary..its going to kick off... and then BAM!! as the snare drums kick in.
Holy f**k, this riff!
Trying to figure out what's going on.
This is fast!
Oh shit those drums!!
Off we go on the rollercoaster, head already involuntary moving back and fore to the beat.
Never heard snare drums like this before.
In the background, I'm trying to distinguish the bass drums. I can hear them clicking away, with off beat triplets against that dominating snare. This is mental. And while I'm trying to take it all in, at around 1:13 (based on YouTube Music timing), it settles into a crushing riff that probably killed a fair amount of brain cells during my lifetime.
The vocals - barked out, doomy, depressing..
"Death of Mother Earth!"
"Colour our world blackened!" immediately followed by a glorious onslaught of double bass drumming.
Holy shit, for a drum nerd, this is heaven.
Back into the main riff and off we go again. "Never!!" there goes that triplet pattern again.
"Blackened"...oh, 2.34 ish and we're slowing down.. and getting heavier..how is this possible?
Oh my god at 2:50. This is the heaviest thing I've ever heard in my admittedly sheltered music listening experience.
All the time, Lars is doing cool shit on the snare, little double bass blasts and off beat cymbal crashes.
Then he tops it at around 4:04 with the coolest f**king fill I've ever heard in my life, and if you know this song, you know this fill. Snares and toms, a rolling floor tom fill, and a snare / closed hi-hat double combo. We haven't even got halfway yet and my tiny mind is blown. How do they come up with this?
A guitar solo starts up around 4:34, punctuated with Lars' stacatto snare rolls. At 4:57, it picks up pace and then we're off. I imagine the guitarists fingers on fire (I'm not really into guitar solos, but I know a face-melter when I hear one).
At 5:32 the solo and snares combine to take us back into the main riff?
No, what the heck?
The riff is wrong.
No the beat is wrong?
What?
It took me years to find out what was going on here - courtesy of The Art of Guitar on YouTube.
Whatever - this 5:30-5:50, is the most head-bangy part of the song, and given that I've already banged the f**k out of my head and neck up to this point, that says something.
Meanwhile, back into it as we race towards the end.
And then it ends.
I have to stop the tape.
F**k.
I'm exhausted.
First track.
How the hell am I going to get through the rest of this?
And that, dear reader, was my first experience of Blackened.
A song that remains in my all time Top 2 Metallica tracks. Even though I do not like AJFA as much most of their other work, Blackened is an all-time great, and will always, always make any playlist of mine.
I went years without listening to it (life/ getting older). But as soon as it starts up and those drums kick in - oh hey I'm a teenager again.
This song f**king rules.
Always has.
Always will.