Load (album)
Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox album Load is the sixth studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica, released on June 4, 1996, by Elektra Records in the United States and by Vertigo Records internationally. The album showed more of a hard rock side of Metallica than the band's typical thrash metal style, which alienated much of the band's fanbase.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It also featured influences from genres such as Southern rock, blues rock, country rock,<ref name="allmusic"/> and alternative rock.<ref name="EW"/> Drummer Lars Ulrich said about LoadTemplate:'s more exploratory nature, "This album and what we're doing with it – that, to me, is what Metallica are all about: exploring different things. The minute you stop exploring, then just sit down and fucking die."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> At 79 minutes, Load is Metallica's longest studio album.
Load received mixed reviews from critics but was a commercial success, debuting and spending four consecutive weeks at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart. Load sold 680,000 units in its first week, making it the biggest opening week for Metallica as well as the biggest debut of 1996.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It was certified 5× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipping five million copies in the United States. Four singles were released: "Until It Sleeps", "Hero of the Day", "Mama Said", and "King Nothing". A super deluxe reissue will be released in June 2025.
Background
[edit]Load, released approximately five years after the commercially successful album Metallica, saw the band shifting toward hard rock and further away from their thrash metal roots. As on previous releases, the album's fourteen songs began as rough demos created by principal songwriters James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich in Ulrich's basement recording studio, "The Dungeon". In early 1995, the band took over thirty demos into The Plant Studios, where they would work for approximately one year. Metallica worked with producer Bob Rock, who had been at the helm during the recording process for Metallica.
The songwriting dispensed almost entirely with the thrash metal style that characterized the band's sound in the 1980s. Metallica had listed several artists and bands from which they took inspiration while writing Load and Reload that strayed from the types of bands that influenced them for their earlier albums, including Kyuss, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Primus, ZZ Top, Pantera, Corrosion of Conformity, Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, and even more mainstream acts like Oasis, Alanis Morissette, and Garth Brooks, among others.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This resulted in Load having a much more mid-paced, groovier sound that verged on hard rock. In place of staccato riffs, Hetfield and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett experimented with blues rock-based tones and styles. Additionally, Ulrich adopted a minimalist approach to his drum recording, abandoning the speed and complex double bass drumming patterns of previous albums, and using simpler techniques and playing styles.
The album's lyrical themes show a striking departure from Metallica's previously social and politically charged subjects; many of Load's tracks discuss themes of depression, including "Bleeding Me", "Mama Said", and "Until It Sleeps", all of which are about the death of Hetfield's mother, and "The Outlaw Torn", which is said to be about the band coping with Cliff Burton's death. Other songs, such as "The House Jack Built" and "Cure", discuss themes of drug and alcohol addiction, and "Thorn Within" and "Poor Twisted Me" reflect James's struggles with depression.
Hammett, encouraged by producer Bob Rock, also played rhythm guitar on a Metallica album for the first time, having previously only played lead parts with Hetfield playing all the rhythm parts to achieve a tighter feel, in contrast to the looser feel they were looking for here.<ref name="guitarworld.com">Template:Cite web</ref> Hammett continued playing rhythm until Death Magnetic when Hetfield once again played all the rhythm parts.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
At 79 minutes, Load is Metallica's longest studio album. With the CD length at 78:59, initial pressings of the album were affixed with stickers boasting of its long playtime, simply reading "78:59". "The Outlaw Torn" had to be shortened by about one minute to fit on the album; the full version of the track was released on the single "The Memory Remains" as "The Outlaw Torn (Unencumbered by Manufacturing Restrictions Version)", with a running time of 10:48. An explanation on the single's back cover stated:
Load was Metallica's first album on which all tracks were down-tuned to E♭ tuning. Hammett states:
The band had recorded songs on earlier albums in tunings lower than E: "The God That Failed" (Metallica) was in E♭, and "Sad but True" (Metallica) and "The Thing That Should Not Be" (Master of Puppets) were in D tuning. Hetfield also felt that the change to E♭ was a bonus, as it was easier to perform string bends in the riffs.<ref name="guitarworld.com"/>
The Australian CD release of Load includes a bonus interview CD that is unavailable elsewhere.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 10 songs from the album have been played live: "King Nothing", "Until It Sleeps", "Ain't My Bitch", "Bleeding Me", "Wasting My Hate", "Hero of the Day", "The Outlaw Torn", "2 X 4", "Poor Twisted Me", "Mama Said".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> "The House Jack Built", "Cure", "Thorn Within", and "Ronnie" have never been performed live.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Artwork
[edit]The cover of Load is an original artwork titled "Semen and Blood III". It is one of three photographic studies that Andres Serrano created in 1990 by mingling bovine blood and his own semen between two sheets of Plexiglas.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The liner notes simply state "cover art by Andres Serrano" rather than listing the title of the work. Hammett learned of Serrano's work from Godflesh frontman Justin Broadrick when he was shown the music video Serrano had directed for the Godflesh song "Crush My Soul". Broadrick claimed that no one in Metallica knew about Serrano before the "Crush My Soul" music video.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In a 2009 interview with Classic Rock, Hetfield expressed his dislike of the album cover and its inspiration:
Load also marked the first appearance of a new Metallica logo that rounded off the stabbing edges of the band's earlier logo, greatly simplifying its appearance. The M from the original logo was used to make a shuriken-like symbol known as the "ninja star", which was used as an alternate logo on this and future albums, and on related artwork. The album featured an expansive booklet containing photographs by Anton Corbijn. These photographs depict the band in various dress, including white A-shirts with suspenders, Cuban suits, and gothic. In the aforementioned 2009 interview, James Hetfield said:
Reception
[edit]Template:Music ratings Load received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Rolling Stone said, "The foursome dams the bombast and chugs half-speed ahead, settling into a wholly magnetizing groove that bridges old-school biker rock and the doomier side of post-grunge '90s rock."<ref name=RS /> Q enthused, "These boys set up their tents in the darkest place of all, in the naked horror of their own heads... Metallica make existential metal and they've never needed the props... Metallica are still awesome... What is new is streamlined attack, the focus and, yes, the tunes."<ref name="CDUniverse" /> Musician praised the band's performances and commended the change in sound, saying that "The boys are more into cohesion now, more interested in the slow increase of momentum."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Melody Maker expressed reservations about Load's heaviness compared to its predecessors: "A Metallica album is traditionally an exhausting event. It should rock you to exhaustion, leave you brutalised and drained. This one is no exception. It is, however, the first Metallica album to make me wonder at any point, 'What the fuck was that?' It's as if the jackboot grinding the human face were to take occasional breaks for a pedicure."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> AllMusic considered Load repetitive, uninteresting and poorly executed.<ref name="allmusic" /> In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau said "this is just a metal record with less solo room, which is good because it concentrates their chops, and more singing, which isn't because they can't."<ref name="VV"/>
"Some of that stuff was pretty cool," remarked Lars Ulrich of the album and its follow-up. "With Load, it was disappointing that some people's reaction to the music was biased by how they dealt with the pictures – the hair and all that crap [see Artwork, above]. People have come up to me years afterwards and said, 'I never gave the record a fair chance because I couldn't get beyond Jason Newsted wearing eyeliner.' But 'The Outlaw Torn', some of that shit is pretty fucking awesome."<ref>"Get a chick! Or get a monkey!"; Classic Rock #48, Christmas 2002, p6</ref>
Reissue
[edit]Load will be reissued as a super deluxe box set on June 13, 2025. Described in a press release as "an ambitious and comprehensive time capsule of 1995–1997 era Metallica", the super deluxe set includes previously unreleased demos, rough mixes, videos, live recordings, and more. The physical release is spread across 15 CDs, six vinyl records, four DVDs, a 128-page hardcover book, and additional materials. The reissue also includes a 2025 remaster of the original album by Reuben Cohen and the original extended version of "The Outlaw Torn", which was edited down due to manufacturing limits.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Track listing
[edit]Personnel
[edit]Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.<ref name="booklet">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="MO">Template:Cite web</ref>
Metallica
- James Hetfield – vocals, rhythm guitar, lead guitar on "2 X 4", "The House Jack Built", "King Nothing", "Thorn Within" and "The Outlaw Torn"<ref name="Haircuts"/>
- Kirk Hammett – lead and rhythm guitar<ref name="Haircuts"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Jason Newsted – bass
- Lars Ulrich – drums
Production Template:Div col
- Bob Rock – production
- Brian Dobbs – engineering, mixing
- Randy Staub – engineering
- Jason Goldstein – assistant engineering
- Kent Matcke – assistant engineering
- Mike Fraser – mixing
- Matt Curry – mixing assistant
- Mike Rew – mixing assistant
- George Marino – mastering
- Paul DeCarli – digital editing
- Mike Gillies – digital editing assistant
- Chris Vrenna – digital editing assistant
- Andie Airfix – design
- Andres Serrano – cover design
- Anton Corbijn – photography
Charts
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Weekly charts
[edit]| Chart (1996) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Czech Albums (IFPI)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 1 |
| Danish Albums (Hitlisten)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 1 |
| Europe (European Top 100 Albums)<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | 1 |
| Irish Albums (IRMA)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 2 |
| Italian Albums (FIMI)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 2 |
| Portuguese Albums (AFP)<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | 1 |
| Spanish Albums (AFYVE)<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | 2 |
| Zimbabwean Albums<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> | 8 |
Year-end charts
[edit]| Chart (1996) | Position |
|---|---|
| Australian Albums (ARIA)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 21 |
| Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 6 |
| Canadian Albums (RPM)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 9 |
| Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 33 |
| European Top 100 Albums (Music & Media)<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | 10 |
| French Albums (SNEP)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 17 |
| German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 6 |
| New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 17 |
| Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 23 |
| UK Albums (OCC)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 59 |
| US Billboard 200<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | 14 |
| Chart (1997) | Position |
|---|---|
| Canadian Hard Rock Albums (Nielsen Soundscan)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> | 18 |
Decade-end charts
[edit]| Chart (1990–1999) | Position |
|---|---|
| US Billboard 200<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | 81 |
Certifications
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