Metallica in the Black

Thirty years after famously fracturing the world of metal (and heavy rock in general), metallica’s self-titled 1991 masterpiece — aka the Black Album — is getting the deluxe reissue treatment. In this exclusive interview, James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett pull back the veil on the album that became “the master key to everything”

- By Richard Bienstock. Photography by Jimmy Hubbard, Ross Halfin

BY THE END of the 1980s, heavy metal — and, in particular, thrash metal — had become something of a musical arms race. “It was all about impressing the other bands with your heaviness, with your speed, with your technical prowess,” Metallica frontman James Hetfield recalls to Guitar World. “Everyone wanted to come up with the heaviest riff on earth or the fastest song possible.” Given that Metallica had already spent most of the decade gleefully pushing the boundaries of heaviness, speed and technicality on each of their first four recordings — 1983’s Kill ’Em All, the following year’s Ride the Lightning, 1986’s Master of Puppets and 1988’s …And Justice for All — they decided that, for their fifth release, they’d try something a little different. “The next album,” guitarist Kirk Hammett says, “was going to be shorter, simpler songs.”

That album, officially released August 12, 1991, as Metallica, but better known as the Black Album, was, true to Hammett’s words, characterized by more concise and straightforward compositions, in particular when compared to its exceedingly proggy predecessor, …And Justice for All. But it was also much, much more.

Working with a new producer, Bob Rock, who had recently helmed Mötley Crüe’s mainstream smash, 1989’s Dr. Feelgood, the band — which, in addition to Hetfield and Hammett included drummer Lars Ulrich and now ex-bassist Jason Newsted — crafted something that not only became the biggest heavy metal album of its day, but one that, at more than 35 million copies sold worldwide, is quite likely the most successful heavy metal album ever.