It’s unclear if the compilation is even intended to be heard in sequence. Weezer, who scored an improbable hit in 2018 by covering Toto, sleepwalk through a carbon copy of “Enter Sandman” that follows the original note-for-note except when they interpolate a lick from “Buddy Holly.” A group called Goodnight, Texas brings a stomp-clap-hey to “Of Wolf and Man.” By welcoming such an enormous list of contributors, Metallica all but ensured that Blacklist would be an uneven listening experience-and it is. Reggaeton hitmaker J Balvin drops off a version of “Wherever I May Roam” so half-assed that it seems like he accidentally delivered the demo. Of course, on a 53-track album, they can’t all be winners. IDLES turn “The God That Failed” into a bug-eyed post-punk exorcism, while Kamasi Washington pulls off the most impressive feat of the record, discovering a swirling spiritual jazz workout in the little-loved “My Friend of Misery” and enlisting vocalist Patrice Quinn to breathe new life into Hetfield’s cynical lyric. Other tracks use Metallica’s songs like jumping-off points: Flatbush Zombies build a woozy hip-hop epic around a pitch-shifted sample of “The Unforgiven,” splashing wrenchingly autobiographical verses on James Hetfield’s vaguely anti-authoritarian canvas. The spirit of the release is better captured by the thumping, maximalist pop of Rina Sawayama’s “Enter Sandman” and the disquieting beauty of Moses Sumney’s “The Unforgiven.” These covers find a nugget of truth in the original and deliver it in a fresh context. Slipknot’s Corey Taylor clearly loves “Holier Than Thou,” but his note-perfect interpretation feels out of place. Their devotion to the source material is admirable, but next to some of their more daring company they seem to be missing the point. Only a handful of songs on The Metallica Blacklist scan as metal. The Metallica Blacklist can only exist because of that transformation: The simplified songwriting lends itself to musical pliability in a way that ’80s Metallica doesn’t, and the most successful Blacklist cuts are the ones that take full advantage of that fact. Rather than doubling down on complexity, Metallica used Justice’s follow-up to transform into a new kind of heavy band, one that could reach the radio rock fans their thrashier records didn’t. Justice pushed Metallica to their physical limits, with barrages of ultra-technical riffs and off-kilter rhythms stuffed into prog-pollinated song structures. Their previous record, 1988’s …And Justice for All, yielded the MTV hit “One” and earned them their first Grammy. Metallica were already on their way to becoming the biggest metal band in the world before they made the Black Album.
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