H13 posted:

I am an utterly shameless Metallica fanboy.

...

Which I will now gleefully demonstrate with zero shame, and pure fanboy pride.

AJFA is their best album and it's loving perfect in every way.

Hetfield, Hammett and Ulrich had been on the relentless album\touring since they were about 19 years old. By the time Cliff died, they had the emotional maturity of a turnip. Partly because record labels enjoy keeping bands at the same emotional maturity so that they keep churning out the same content.

AJFA is basically James and Lars blasting out their grief over Cliff at a million decibels, and not giving many fucks about whether or not you like it. Not that they realise it at the time, they were doing what sounded\felt right.

ERGO:
Did Metallica sound right without Cliff on bass? gently caress no. Who's this fuckin' wannabe? The album sounds poo poo with that bass, it's not Cliff so turn it down.
Was the album one gigantic riff salad of unbeatably loving awesome Thrash Metal riffs? gently caress yeah it was. James couldn't process emotion through...y'know. Therapy. So he did it with alcohol and loving amazing riffs.
Was Lars

But the end result is a grating, unpleasant, difficult, confronting album to listen to. That's EVERYTHING that a Metal album SHOULD be.

"Excuse me, I want my Metal to sound pleasant and pretty and nice. I would like some bass guitar so that the scary guitar sounds less scary"

Get hosed. You're gonna get an album of pissed off Hetfield, screaming directly into your earholes for the entire duration. Then he'll let Kirk play the best fuckin' solos of his career. Meanwhile Lars will

Albums are meant to be a bit of a time capsulte. It's meant to capture everything that the musicians were feeling at that time. Not only are the songs heavy and ugly, the album sounds heavy and ugly and it is everything about where the band was at that time.

So yeah. AJFA is by far my favourite Metallica album and I argue probably still the greatest metal album of all time.

If AJFA is too scary for you because it doesn't have bass, might I suggest you listen to Load instead? (Note: Load is actually one of their best loving albums fight me you gently caress)