Back catalogue: Rock (All)

Review: This unmissable two-disc bundle nets Metallica's explosive live performances at the Seattle Center Coliseum on 29-30 August 1989, during their legendary Damaged Justice Tour. Widely regarded by fans as among of the band's finest shows, this tearout time capsule boasts a stellar setlist, including 'Seek & Destroy’, 'For Whom the Bell Tolls’, 'Creeping Death’, ‘Battery’, 'Master of Puppets’ and 'The Thing That Should Not Be'. Unleashed to the world like a cageful of batwinged, sledgehammer wielding demons, it came right after their fourth LP release And Justice for All, which in turn set the Damaged Justice tour in motion; these menacers will always come back to haunt us through the tube amps.

Review: The fourth full-length from thrash metal titans Metallica has gone on since its original 1988 release to be heralded as the band's most progressive, vicious and artistic statement. Marking their first work following the tragic passing of bassist Cliff Burton, the album has become controversial for its notable muting of (at the time) newcomer Jason Newsted's performance, yet it's immensely difficult to ignore a project that boasts some of the band's finest material, from the breakneck paced opener 'Blackened' to the grooving intensity of 'Harvester Of Sorrow' to the Johnny Got His Gun based psychological metal ballad 'One'. Ask a Metallica lifer what's truly the group's finest moment, and any worth their salt will point you towards ...And Justice For All each and every time.

Review: If you've seen Metallica live and in the flesh you'll appreciate how ferocious their shows are. It's not just the music that's loud, all aspects of the performance seems to hit like wrecking ball, raising the volume and intensity on each chord of every riff, drum-packed crescendo, and disorientating outro. And it's always been that way, as this reissued recording from one of their legendary shows proves. Captured in 1994, when the thrash metal pioneers played Woodstock, USA, Justice For All certainly lives up to the name of the outfit's classic 1988 LP, And Justice For All, which earned them their first Grammy nomination. It's pretty powerful, potent stuff, running through a number of the group's strongest tracks in a live context, which goes some way towards transporting us to the gig itself.

Review: Easily, the most controversial album in the Metallica back catalogue (with the exception of their Lou Reed collab LP Lulu), St. Anger was originally released in 2003, and marked yet another stylistic shift from the thrash metal titans. Following on from the hard rock-oriented sister albums Load and Re:Load in the mid-nineties, and their Garage Inc. covers collection, the band's eighth full-length would eschew virtuosic guitar solos (once a core staple of their sonic makeup) and their galloping style of frenetic riffage; replacing them with a more jagged style of composition and performance, leading to a unique sound falling somewhere between groove and alt-metal, yet much rawer than either of the two. Maligned by many, yet defended by a vocal section of the fanbase, there's something remarkably ballsy about the sheer abandon of their former selves on this record, while cuts such as the pummelling title-track, the southern-tinged bedlam of 'Frantic', and the chunky heft of 'My World', are all criminally slept on latter day contributions, forgotten to time for being the musical blacksheep of the Metallica discography. Also, if you ever deeply desired to hear drummer Lars Ulrich's utterly bizarre snare sound with pure audio fidelity, this lush orange vinyl 2xLP reissue has you covered.

Review: It isn't much of an understatement to say that thrash metal giants Metallica got off on the wrong creative foot entering into the 21st century, with 2003's controversial St. Anger still causing ample debate amongst the fanbase to this day. A five-year respite would see a re-channelling of their ethos and approach, resulting in 2008's exceptional return to form Death Magnetic, which finally saw the band crack the code of how to modernise their signature formula without losing sight of why it resonated with so many headbangers in the first place. Following another near-decade long gap, 2016 saw the arrival of Hardwired...To Self-Destruct; a project that furthered their sonic realignment with a near 80-minute opus of lengthy compositions, galloping riffage and anthemic hooks; harking authentically back to the progressive, controlled meanderings of their late 80s peek. If its predecessor was the re-charting of course, Hardwired can easily be accepted as the arrival at the shore of placated fan acceptance and fluid artistic rediscovery.

Review: "It rained like a cow pissing on a flat rock" Aerosmith's Steven Tyler apparently once said about Woodstock 94. His band's set, in the middle of the night, followed a monumental firework display at the end of Metallica's typically juggernaut show. A cataclysmic halt, picturing the scene in your mind now is almost biblical, moody storms setting in across a dangerously oversold, woefully organised weekender headlined by some of the most lightning-worthy rock bands on the planet. Short Cuts: The Best of Woodstock 94 is more than a concert recording, then. An abridged version of a marathon set, it's also a declaration of intent from metal titans who refused to be upstaged by the events unfolding around them. If there's ever an excuse to revisit Metallica on stage during the Black Album period, then surely it's with a backdrop of chaos and rage?

Review: The second and final instalment of thrash metal titans Metallica's Orion Music + More festival took place in Detroit, Michigan, on June 8th/9th 2013, and while the ordeal itself was a complete and utter financial disaster (hence there has yet to be a third event in the decade since), the line-up and performances across the weekend are still hyped and discussed to this day. Where the 4:30pm slot at the Vans Damage Inc Stage on the first day was originally allotted to a mysterious group named Dehaan, eagle-eyed fans connected the dots when remembering the name of actor Dane Dehaan who played the lead role in the Metallica concert film Through The Never. Then, as the "band's" logo was covered up with a hastily spray-painted "Metal Up Your Ass" banner (the original title to Metallica's 1982 debut full-length Kill 'Em All), attendees flocked in their droves just in time for a mid-afternoon shredfest of the iconic first album in its entirety, complete with the first ever performance of original bassist Cliff Burton's solo piece '(Anesthesia) - Pulling Teeth', by his replacement Robert Trujillo.

Review: Metallica's self-titled fifth full-length, subsequently dubbed 'The Black Album', still serves as the controversial bridging point from their iconic run of four definitive thrash metal classics throughout the 80's, to their more sporadic and messy 90s output. For some, the inclusion of producer Bob Rock was a step too far into accessible territory as ten-minute instrumentals were abandoned, compositions were simplified, and the overall aggressive, grim edges showcased on the preceding classics Master Of Puppets and ...And Justice for All were somewhat sanded down to appeal to as large of an audience as possible. Make no mistake however, for every naysayer fan who opts to live in a fantasy where Metallica never continued into a second decade, there's still legions of adoring defenders who praise the balance the group would strike. It also doesn't hurt that the tracklist boasts literally some of the most well known and iconic cuts of their career, from the opening classic 'Enter Sandman' to the hefty groove of 'Sad But True', to more melodious fare like 'The Unforgiven' as well as the timeless ballad 'Nothing Else Matters'.