"The speed metalheads were barking, "Sellout!" the minute this baby dropped: Metallica had actually bothered to write songs, not just string ten minutes' worth of hot licks into an anti-capital-punishment suite. But in slowing the tempos down from dizzy to primal, in choosing meaty presence over mere velocity in the riffing, Metallica made a record of durable, mature violence — not to mention the biggest metal album of the decade. And don't let the orchestration and James Hetfield's thoughtful growl on "Nothing Else Matters" fool you: Metallica didn't turn into power-ballad suckers; they simply created a ballad with power". Metallica
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