AA.VV.
Remastered - Metallica's Master Of Puppets Revisited

Metallica have received tributes in all sorts of ways; time and again, the Four Horsemen have seen their most famous tracks covered by Metal, Punk, Industrial groups, and there's even a compilation of their songs in lullaby version!!!!

But this tribute is the classic missed opportunity. In 2006, it marks 20 years since the release of the absolute masterpiece of Heavy Metal, and what does the French magazine Kerrang organize??? A tribute to this historic album, but instead of having the tracks interpreted by Thrash Metal bands who alone would have known how to capture the spirit and soul of these milestone songs, they hire the most popular Metalcore bands today and have them play at being Metallica. In truth, the only tracks that are salvaged are those interpreted by the only serious bands involved, namely, Machine Head, who redo BATTERY in a more than decent manner, and Mastodon, who do an excellent job on the colossal ORION. As for the rest, there are the Trivium, who offer a MASTER OF PUPPETS that's neither praiseworthy nor disgraceful, Mendeed, who butcher the beautiful THE THING THAT SHOULD NOT BE, Bullet For My Valentine, who do a terrible rendition of WELCOME HOME (SANITARIUM), Chimaira, who do fairly well with DISPOSABLE HEROES, Fightstar, who butcher LEPER MESSIAH with a vocal performance ranging from boring to soporific, and finally, Funeral For A Friend, who render the magnificent DAMAGE INC. literally unlistenable.

At this point, I wonder why have half of the tracks interpreted by people who, I'd bet, have never even listened to Metallica? What the hell do bands like Bullet for My Valentine, Mendeed, Fightstar, and Funeral for a Friend have to do with Thrash Metal??

I would have done it like this: 01 TESTAMENT - BATTERY / 02 MESHUGGAH - MASTER OF PUPPETS / 03 MORBID ANGEL - THE THING THAT SHOULD NOT BE / 04 ANTHRAX - WELCOME HOME (SANITARIUM) / 05 EXODUS - DISPOSABLE HEROES / 06 MEGADETH - LEPER MESSIAH / 07 MASTODON - ORION / 08 SLAYER - DAMAGE INC.

I would like to conclude with some thoughts on Metallica's new album. I don't think Lars and friends are idiots, and they certainly won't make the unforgivable mistake of serving us another "St Anger," or worse, some sort of Tri-Load. In my opinion, they will make a standard album, with all the "credentials" to satisfy the old fans, much like Megadeth have done with their latest works. For a while now, there have been rumors that it would be somewhere between "And Justice For All" and the "Black Album." Honestly, I don't think we can expect more and better. But it must be said that if there's one thing we can expect from Metallica, it's precisely that we never know what to expect from Metallica.