Metallica - Best to Worst Tier Rankings

A simple ranking list of all of Metallica’s albums, from their best to their worst. Only including studio released albums, although comments about other EPs/Live Albums/other stuff they’ve done may appear here at some point.

Metallica were, like many, my introduction to Thrash Metal and Metal Music as a whole, and so I’ll always hold them in a special place in my heart. I grew up listening to their 80s/early 90s stuff, mainly the Black Album and Master of Puppets, and so I feel a little bit of debt/gratitude solely due to this. Plenty has been written about Metallica over the years, but here’s my personal 2 pence on all their albums.

The tl;dr ranking

For those just wanting the raw rankings, here they are:

1. Master of Puppets
2. Ride the Lightning
3. Kill ‘Em All
4. Metallica (Black Album)
5. …And Justice for All
6. Death Magnetic
7. Load
8. Reload
9. 72 Seasons
10. Hardwired…To Self-Destruct
11. St. Anger

The top 5 albums are very good and definitely worthwhile listens, the middle 6-10 I’m pretty indifferent to, mostly mediocre outside a few highlights (and lowlights!), and St. Anger is irredeemably bad.

The longer version

1. Master of Puppets

Well, it was either this or Ride the Lightning. This is the thrashy album I listened to the most when younger, but I still feel it also holds up as their best, still having raw thrash aggression in the albums’ veins, yet also featuring multifaceted songs with oodles of great riffs, solos and just enough bombast and pomp that make you feel that Metallica have produced a truly special album - and they’d be completely right.

The 8 tracks contained are realistically all winners here, which is no mean feat. The first half features a strong 1-2 punch of the hyper-aggressive thrashy Battery into the epic of the title track, the dark brooding The Thing That Should Not Be into the somber Welcome Home (Sanitarium), while the second half picks up once again with another relentless thrasher in Disposable Heroes, chugs along with Leper Messiah, a big instrumental piece in Orion then ends on another excellent speedy note with Damage, Inc.

It also avoids all the pitfalls that have beset many Metallica albums, namely production and length. The album is warm, rich and beefy in sound and this makes it extremely inviting and rewarding to listen to - and the length, from an artist who has constantly been plagued with overfilling songs and albums to the point of excessive repetition, the relative tightness and conciseness is extremely refreshing. I’ll also give a nod to the lyrics and themes, which are definitely a cut above both a typical thrash album and Metallica albums as a whole.

Thus overall, I say this is Metallica at peak musical performance and one of the definitive canonical Thrash Metal albums.

Now, I wouldn’t say its entirely perfect, there’s a few personal nitpicks I have: Disposable Heroes could be trimmed down a smidgen?, Leper Messiah is the weakest (if still very strong) track in the list, and Orion feels a little overly mid-paced and out of place, but these are complaints I have to dig deep on.

Best tracks: Battery, Master of Puppets, The Thing That Should Not Be, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Disposable Heroes, Damage, Inc.

4.5/5

2. Ride the Lightning

Predictably 2nd best on the list, and really very comparable to Master of Puppets, its right next to it not only in quality but also in album structure - a lot, if not all, the same beats are hit from one song to the next pretty much. Which is no bad fact, the 1-2 punch of Fight Fire With Fire into Ride the Lightning is excellent, For Whom The Bell Tolls is ominous and haunting, and the ending duo of Creeping Death into The Call of Ktulu makes for a big bombastic bookend to the album.

But there are some marginally weaker tracks that make this album falter where MoP doesn’t, Trapped Under Ice, Fade to Black, Escape, all are good but not great, and this is the key reason why I think Ride the Lightning is only their second best, but its absolutely still a worthwhile album, and a truly quantum leap in terms of songwriting and performance from their debut.

Best Tracks: Fight Fire With Fire, Ride The Lightning, Creeping Death, The Call of Ktulu

4.0/5

3. Kill ‘Em All

For the 3rd in the list, I’m picking their debut Kill ‘Em All, and for one main reason - Its an album brimming with raw thrash and speed metal energy not found in any other Metallica album to date, and so has a unique position amongst the entire Metallica discography.

Its obvious that the members here are full of hunger, nothing to lose, everything to prove and well, in a genre as reliant as pure energy as thrash metal, it just works incredibly well. Sure, the actual specific sound and vocal stylings is old-school and derivative of peers, when its done so well and there is so much pure fun to be had, do you really need to care about such frivolities?

Again, there’s an excellent set of tracks here, yet again there’s a great 1-2 introductory punch on the album, with the super energetic Hit The Lights sweeping into the multi-part multifaceted The Four Horseman, the endlessly catchy Jump In The Fire, the beautiful interlude-y soundscape of (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth (RIP Cliff Burton) which bridges across to the breakneck Whiplash - despite being the debut record, there’s not only a lot of high points, but some of Metallica’s best songs period show up here. The’s a part of me that wishes Metallica sounded like this for just a little more in their career, despite obviously going onto bigger and better things.

Now this relentless thrash energy does have some weaknesses, and thats simply that the genre can be pretty samey, with this album being no different. Tracks such as Motorbreath and Phantom Lord I could both take or leave, and others like Seek & Destroy and Metal Militia are good but don’t quite line up to some of the best offerings here, but given its fairly unique status, it really stand alone as a great Metallica record in its own right, not just “the album they released before Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets”.

Best Tracks: Hit The Lights, The Four Horsemen, Jump In The Fire, (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth, Whiplash

4.0/5

4. Metallica (Black Album)

This is the album that propelled Metallica into true megastars, from the metal scene to the world at large, sold a bajillion copies and got endless radio play back in the day. They were selling out, I tell you! And while I say that previous sentence in part jest and part seriousness, the Black Album was my very first introduction to Metallica, so I will always give it props for that alone.

This album is the first album where Metallica shifted from their trademark relatively complex Thrash sound into something slower, softer, more straightforward yet simultaneously still heavy, interesting and still demonstrably Metallica. When put like this, its remarkable the album was as successful and as popular as it was, given this sounds like an impossible transition, nay, total re-invention. However, is the hype to believed?

Honestly, on the whole I really do believe it deserved the hype. Yes, its simpler, less complex and thrashy and is more pure “metal pop” with its straightforward, immaculately produced heaviness, but they really nail that sound. Tracks like Enter Sandman, Sad But True, The Unforgiven and Nothing Else Matters, sure they’ve been played to absolute death, but there’s a reason, the songwriting and performances are just so immaculately done, they’re catchy and instantly listenable, and so perfect to be played repeatedly on radio, on cd and personal mp3 players. In fact, the weakest tracks here are really the ones that don’t take that full leap, compromising with the older thrash sound, such as Holier Than Thou, Don’t Tread On Me and The Struggle Within, which indirectly really demonstrates how good the main pop metal core to this sound is.

This does mean that the album is overall somewhat uneven, and the fact that its so radio orientated means that while its achieved the goal its set out to do (hitting radio and selling tons of records, and getting the layman listener into metal), I really only respect and appreciate the album for what it represents (transcending its greatness with just raw influence, which is rare in a record) vs. actually listening to the record front-to-back, years and years after my first initial metal immersion, outside of some kind of nostalgia trip.

Best Tracks: Enter Sandman, Sad but True, The Unforgiven, Wherever I May Roam, Nothing Else Matters, The God That Failed

4.0/5

5. …And Justice For All

The last of Metallica’s 80’s releases, and quite frankly the weakest, in essentially every way. The songwriting, the production, the individual song quality are all quite rough here compared to their other 80s albums - and sure I’d say its the most technical and complex of them all and that certainly gives it some merit, I more see it as a “harbinger” of things to come, namely the post-80s Metallica tradition too-long albums with too-long songs with mediocre production, even if this album itself is not all too bad - and that’s a shame as with better mixing, some superfluous length trimmed here and there (e.g. on …And Justice for All, The Shortest Straw, The Frayed Ends of Sanity… honestly most tracks here), it could have been a great, more overtly technical thrash album (although if you want wonkily produced hyper technical thrash, go listen to like… Coroner or Watchtower). Unfortunately, with none of that, it comfortably sits as the “worst” good Metallica album.

But that negativity can only really go so far, because as much as I may criticise the production etc. it does give it a unique sound, dry and flat sure, but also claustrophobic which does sometimes fit these songs (even if the drumming, while appropriately technical and skillful, sounds pretty weak and annoyingly clicky) - and hey, an album featuring One can’t be that bad.

Favourite Tracks: Blackened, One, The Frayed Ends Of Sanity

3.5/5

6. Death Magnetic

A return to form after the catastrophic St. Anger, right? Well, kind of - its definitely an attempt to rekindle the flame, going back to the trademark thrash Metallica sound, but the raw ferocity, hunger and writing isn’t really all there, and given Metallica have been kicking around for ~25 years at this point, its not too suprising. It functions as an album, but it rarely elevates beyond that, and being the winner in the Loudness war does it very little favours in that regard.

There are some still decent ideas here even if perhaps recycled/re-inventing previous songs worse, but its still somewhat enjoyable, or at least there are sections (Metallica drag things out way too long here, The Judas Kiss is offender #1 for this) that are enjoyable, but these songs really don’t benefit from being this long nor having as many distinct sections, it all just feels tacked-on and long because, hey, thats what they used to do back in the 80s.

And so there comes a pretty frequent question when it comes to making these lists, and ranking the albums that more mediocre (at least in my mind) - what do I praise and rank higher, ‘failed’ experimentation or mediocre rehashing of old sounds? Generally, I would tend towards picking the failed experimentation in a “at least you went out of your comfort zone” but simultaneously the Metallica’s mid-90s-to-early-00’s sound felt like regression as opposed to evolution, and besides, some bands are just not suited towards it - no one complains about Cannibal Corpse sounding similar 30 years since their debut. Yet, rehashing old sounds has to bring something new, something worthwhile to listen to - otherwise why bother? I’m sure Metallica still enjoy writing, recording and touring their new songs, but as a layman I could realistically just stick to their old stuff.

It’s something I’ve thought about (not just about Metallica), and realistically I see no easy answer because, well, reviewing art is subjective, right? And so while I’m not going to get a general answer, I feel that Metallica, outside of thrash metal and the Black Album sound, really just don’t work, and sticking to what little strengths they still have left. It may be a less interesting artistic proposition, but a safe and inoffensive album is more likely to be at least listenable and tolerable. And talking about this is honestly more interesting than the albums themselves, unfortunately.

Best tracks: Broken, Beat & Scarred, Cyanide

Worst tracks: The Judas Kiss, Suicide & Redemption, My Apocalypse

2.5/5

7. Load

This begins the logical conclusion of evolution from the Black album, continued evolution, going further into hard, blues and southern rock and moving even further from their initial roots - And here comes an observation, that bands always feel the pressure to change their sound in time based on the current listening trends at the time, and yet making said change and transition is hard, risky and could easily just remove what made you interesting in the first place. There’s a perpetual push-and-pull between radical reinvention and standing your artistic ground, and these can come internally or externally - either through the bands’ members or from shifting trends, and can be either be embraced wholeheartedly or begrudgingly accepted as a bid to stay culturally relevant.

I say all of this for multiple reasons - firstly is that there are a number of perspectives I could take for reviewing this album, with or without hindsight on where Metallica would take their career, where Metallica were at that current moment, the Metal scene in the mid 90s, or even comparing to what they’re thrash contemporaries were doing at the time. Secondly, it helps me to say words without actually describing the album, which is just extremely plodding, forgettable and feels more like a succumbing to the pressure of the metal scene of the day, rather than embracing/carving out your own niche a la the Black Album.

And so while I do see this as a mediocre album, the perspective can easily shift depending how I view it. As a Metallica album, its not very good, but I will always appreciate an artistic experiment even if the vast majority fail. If it was released by a no-name band in the 90s I almost definitely wouldn’t have listened to this, but at the same time its still better than some of the worst popular music released during this time. And as an album released by an aging thrash band, its really not that bad - the 80s-to-90s transition was a pretty traumatic time for a lot of bands/genres, and thrash bands were no exception to that rule.

So, really, its all down to how I want to slice it, but fundamentally this album is very just “blah”, featuring lots of tepid cuts that just slug along, and with the album being as long as it is (this is a perennial Metallica problem post Black Album), its just exhausting to listen to.

Now, there are still a few good tracks here, King Nothing kicks ass, Until It Sleeps is still a great ballad, and The Outlaw Torn makes an excellent closer - but everything else is either massively non-descript (e.g. 2x4, Hero of The Day, Wasting My Hate, Thorn Within), plain bad/embarrassing (Ain’t My Bitch, The House That Jack Built, Poor Twisted Me, Ronnie) or just totally out of place? (Mama Said), but there’s not enough highs, and plenty of lows or just plain boring moments that the album just smears into into sludge. Why didn’t they just condense down this and Reload into a manageable good-if-not-great album? Sigh.

Best Tracks: Until It Sleeps, King Nothing, The Outlaw Torn

Worst tracks: Ain’t My Bitch, Poor Twisted Me, Ronnie

2.0/5

8. Reload

Well, its essentially the 2nd half/2nd album of Load, another monstrous 75 minute helping of tepid hard rock. Uh, thanks guys? And it definitely sounds like it, coasting along at the middest of mid-pace, cruising along with the same apathetic energy that made Load dull as dishwater.

And yeah, it suffers basically the exact same problems that Load does, in the fact that its bloated, boring and dull, but I suppose when you have to fill two whole CDs to the brim from one period of songwriting, very little is going to be left on the cutting room floor. The one main distinguishing thing from Load is that is seems to be more uneven, more highs and yet simultaneously more lows, which… a little surprising? I would normally expect material written and recorded in one session and yet split across multiple albums to be heavily “front-loaded”, release the best stuff first, but maybe it does make more sense to conceive of this as a double-album that was designed to be consistent in quality, if so, they achieved it, two CDs worth of consistently mediocre quality.

With regards to this tracklist, I do enjoy the opener Fuel which has at least some energy to it, Where The Wild Things Are and Low Man’s Lyric are suprisingly both beautiful in their own way, and Fixxxer is yet another solid closer from the band, but the worst tracks are truly heinous - the straight run from Better Than You to Bad Seed is more than enough to lose all faith in this album, not even mentioning Prince Charming, Attitude or the very fact a song titled The Unforgiven II has the line “Are you unforgiven too?” - truly awful.

And again, I’ll repeat with the “Why didn’t they condense this and Load into a single album?” - There have been plenty of people who have made their own Load+Reload tracklist, and I may make a stab myself at it, but the band should have done this themselves (and I don’t get the urge to listen to late-90s Metallica very often).

Best tracks: Fuel, Where The Wild Things Are, Low Man’s Lyric

Worst tracks: Better Than You, Slither, Carpe Diem Baby, Prince Charming, Attitude

2.0/5

9. 72 Seasons

72 Seasons is currently the newest offering in Metallica’s discography, and while I’m not rating it highly, I do see it as a slight improvement over Hardwired…To Self-Destruct.

It naturally shares a lot of the same issues that have plagued Metallica albums since the 90’s, and I have a few complaints about the drum presence in the mix (no one wants loud hi-hats), but overall I see the base level over the course of the album being just a smidge better than Hardwired. Sure it recycles and rehashes riffs, sections and ideas used on previous albums from their heyday, it feels like a celebration or a victory lap of an album, reminiscing and basking in past glories. While I’m not usually a fan of such obvious artistic self-cannibalisation, it feels genuine enough that I can somewhat look past it - there’s really no reason for Metallica to write, record and release a new album outside of the craft and opportunities to go touring once again.

I’m impressed Hetfield’s voice has lasted so well, its really a shame Metallica hasn’t taken a stab at another ballad or two.

I don’t forsee returning to this record anytime soon, and even then only for the few highlights here, namely the title track and Lux æterna.

Best tracks: 72 Seasons, Lux æterna

Worst tracks: Screaming Suicide, Sleepwalk My Life Away, You Must Burn!, If Darkness Had a Son

2.0/5

10. Hardwired…To Self-Destruct

I see this less as Metallica continuing on down and focusing on what little strengths they have left (i.e. every album Death Magnetic onward) and more of a 3rd helping of the Load era purely down to how the album sounds, and how everything just blends together after even just 20 minutes of listening.

Considering how little I liked the Load era to begin with, I can’t say I’m ever tempted to return to this anytime soon.

Take what little is good here, Moth Into Flame and Spit Out The Bone, and ditch everything else.

By the way, What an awful album cover.

Best tracks: Moth Into Flame, Spit Out The Bone

Worst tracks: Now That We’re Dead, Dream no More, Confusion, ManUNkind

1.5/5

11. St. Anger

Hands down, the worst album, no question.

Likely one of the most imfamously bad albums of all time, a product of a highly dysfunctional band on the verge of collapse, and it very clearly sounds like that.

I could complain about the same things everyone has already complained about before, but my main observation is that this album is great proof of just how crippling an drought of artistic ideas can be, even for the biggest and most popular artists. Not only do you lack good ideas, you’ll cling to any ideas, no matter how bad, like you’d cling to a life-raft if stuck in the middle of the ocean.

Say what you want about modern Metallica releases, or even how badly they come across in the documentary detailing the creation of this album (which is pretty awful), I’m just glad Metallica are still together and not making music that sounds like this.

Best tracks: ???

Worst tracks: ???

0.0/5