Composer Reacts to Metallica - Dyers Eve (REACTION & ANALYSIS)

[@Hoscitt]

You've been trolled into this being a childhood nostalgia song, more childhood trauma 😄

[@dsVektor]

Ooh, this is probably one of my favorite Metallica songs. James seems to have written the best songs when he was pissed about his parents.

[@riphopfer5816]

Agreed.

[@riphopfer5816]

Even on the much-derided (and deservedly so, in the instance of many tunes) Black Album, two of the best songs on the record (“The Unforgiven” and “The God That Failed” ) were, sequentially, a song about the pain of growing up and the futility of life when one’s youth has been consumed by a repressive upbringing, and a song about his anger at his family for placing their faith in prayer rather than medicine when James’s mum was dying of cancer. (The other great (and best-arranged/mixed) song on the album is ‘Wherever I May Roam’, a rare peek into James’s thoughts about his contemporary life on the road. The number of tiny instrumental/effects details on that tune is just incredible. )

[@silchasruinedmytea7307]

riff that starts at 5:25 (in this video not the actual song) realllllllly scratches my brain

[@CriticalReactions]

Oh yeah, that's a great little transition idea. Loopy but forward moving.

[@chagatainouveau]

Some background into the lyrics: James Hetfield's parents were members of the Christian scientist movement, i.e. strict protestant religious fundamentalists who believed in faith healing and were disease-skeptics. Opposition to religious fundamentalism, televangelism, and faith healing feature in James' lyrics on several occasions. (Leper Messiah and The God That Failed, most specifically).

[@jay-remedy-plz]

Thanks for bringing this back. I remembered just how much I love it. Sometimes the monotony of the snare keeps their songs chugging along at a comfortable pace. Nice for cardio workouts. The song ‘Fuel’ does the same for me. In contrast Saint Anger is great lifting music and yes I dig the snare sound on that album!

[@craigroaring]

I remember bringing this album into drama class at school. The lyrics of this song where applicable to the piece being performed. The drama teacher asked me if i thought it all sounded the same to me. Needless to say, I had a very immature and musically inept drama teacher.

[@kentakeura1617]

My childhood favorite track from that album :D

[@riffdagg6701]

Yes there are a couple songs that have been hard for some drummers of bands I have been in to keep on track, blackened would be another one lol

[@scorpionking4012]

That song is about James childhood and what is parents made him go through.

[@MaartenT]

I never really noticed it when I first listened to this album but after hearing the stories about how the bass is absent from this album (whatever the reason might be), it's very difficult to not notice that it's missing. It's a shame too because while it has been a while since I listened to the album, I remember really liking it when I was full on into Metallica. I still like this track a lot, but yes the production on this whole album is a bit wonky.

[@chagatainouveau]

It's very dry. Kind of like listening to music on the speakers of a laptop or phone, or a cheap earplug that has next-to-none low end response. Shame really, because the songwriting and playing on the album are so good that it still manages to be a great album despite the lack of bass. Some bass-added mixes on KZbin are far superior to the original mix.

[@jonathanhenderson9422]

This album probably would've been Metallica's magnum opus with better production. There are versions online that at least remixed it to make the bass audible, but not much can be done to help the thin guitar tone and drum sound. Still this is peak Metallica musically, as progressive as they ever got and you can hear an almost direct line from AJFA and Meshuggah's Contradictions Collapse and other tech-thrash that would emerge after it. This is definitely one of the most intense tracks on the album that carried on the tradition of opening and closing their albums with grade-A slabs of thrash.

[@MetaITurtle]

The Black album is kind of what it would of sounded like. But less reverb

[@StringHead92]

As awful as the production here might be, this remains Metallica's most ambitious record, at least from a song-writing pov, specially on the longer, multi-section songs. If the production was better, I'd like it more than Master of Puppets, which might be a predictable favourite by a classic is a classic for a reason. Definitely an interesting spin on the childhood nostalgia theme. Great insight as always, Bryan!

[@kylehoulihan3875]

Production makes the album what it is the drums vocals and guitars are produced perfectly for what they were going for

[@mooninites3]

People talk a lot about the lack of Newsted's bass in the production of this album because the whole drama behind Metallica not being able to cope the loss of Cliff in a healthy way. But the entire production has always bothered me. Every instrument including James' vocals is just so damn dry, like all the air was sucked out of the room. I think the sharpness is intentional, but I just personally like a little more feedback and noise in anything that is remotely Punk influenced. As someone who thinks Kill Em All is their best album, I actually do prefer the Black Album (still gonna call it that) to this one because it has at least a little more depth. Thrash Metal is normally thought of as a hybrid of traditional Heavy Metal and Hardcore Punk.

[@xdrezcorex]

the palm muting was almost inhumanly fast, but i really dislike how the recording 'sounds': the snare and vocals were way too loud were they sponsored by Crate and Epiphone during this recording? seriously, i don't understand why this recording it bothers me so much when Ulver's NATTENS is among my favorite records.

[@_Helm_]

The overlong sections is Metallica's compositional sin throughout their career. Even on the Black Album (if we called it that when it came out you can call it that, jesus, internet) where they had Bob Rock editing them, it's a plodding, dragging album, actually. Cliff was their master arranger, very tragic. As a good editing exercise you can cut the gist of this song down to 3 minutes. However in a historical sense these overlong sections were instructive to a million bands that copied this *sound profile* more than they copied the riffs or structures. It was a good opportunity to really digest these complex rhythmic constructions and the contrasts between the parts by making them paced slow. Once you listen to And Justice... in total, it would be so instructive if you had listened to Watchtower's 'Energetic Dissassembly' from 1985 and 'Control and Resistance' from 1989 to see where this style was suggested and how it was also perfected. With none of the pacing issues that Metallica even at their best suffer from. Sincerely and honestly! In any case Metallica's take on techno-thrash suffers from pacing issues: So we have super aggressive angry music that feels arrested at the same time. Mirrors the emotional picture of the lyric well, but that doesn't excuse that they play their parts too many times on every other emotional picture as well, heh. re: drums, the sound profile here was adopted widely across all of the metal that came after this. Pantera most famously took this sound profile. Clicky typewriter bass drum and snappy snare can be traced all the way to 20 different extreme metal genres today, as is writing on the pedal note, not to chord progressions. What a weird thing to pick up on, huh? This industrial, cold and clinical, segmented rhythm profile and the linear, repetitive almost techno-like harmonic rigidity. It fit the moods and themes of metal in the early 90s. Today the original mix sounds so bare and dry and empty. The relationship of the listener with the production choices on this album is as big a part of the legacy of the album as the songs themselves. For most casual listeners I would say discourse on the mix overshadows everything else actually. Wonderful coverage, as always it's very satisfying to see you catch so much about why this works and why it doesn't and your elucidations on lyrical themes are getting better and better. I urge you to be this rigorous with all metal lyric even when it seems rudimentary, idiotic of base, to see how it connects with the pictures the sounds evoke. Metal is romantic art in part and seeks to evoke these imaginary images between riff structures and voices and lyrics and moods. Any time you feel the lyric is below the music and you regret that or you feel shame on its behalf, 1. you are probably listening to a lesser metal band and 2. in any case it is worth readjusting your innocence filter and to relistening to the lyric as it connects, however rudimentarily, to the riff picture. This way you will appreciate where the lyric itself usually is coming from: the lyricist listened back to the riffs over and over and auto-completed like a large language model the emotional content that the intensity and power in the riffs evoked.

[@CriticalReactions]

Excellent context and great commentary on lyrical themes. I'll keep this suggestion in mind going forward.

[@_Helm_]

@@CriticalReactions thank you for being gracious :)

[@kevinmadden3396]

If you do go down the Watchtower path (and I recommend it!) be prepared for some truly embarrassing late-80s screeching by Jason McMaster (Energetic Disassembly) and Alan Tecchio (Control and Resistance). It was cool in the late 80s to sing as high as humanly possible...and they did. The lyrics on C&R are hilariously complicated, so the vocal phrasing is...interesting...but the musicianship was out of this world.

[@CriticalReactions]

@@kevinmadden3396 I'll try to keep that in mind.

[@kevinmadden3396]

@@CriticalReactions here is a great example from the "Control and Resistance" record: 3. Mayday In Kiev "The unleashed power of the atom changed everything save our mode of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophes." [- Albert Einstein] In a nation for a dangerous penchant for secrecy A dread disaster at Chernobyl was concealed As a poisoning cloud spread over the Eastern Bloc Alarming information was reluctantly revealed An explosion in Reactor Four - a fire refusing to cease No containment walls preventing radioactive release Evidence that peaceful technology had gone awry More catastrophically than Windscale or TMI Alert - Celebration in Kiev Under glowing skies - Soviet lies Alert - In nearby Poland A shower of radiation Children iodized Mayday - A day of rejoice A cry of distress Severe political fallout - toxic exchange of words Soviet obscurantism under verbal attack Abroad, outraged countries appeal for information Met with grudging riposte, hesitant placation At home, TASS reports no danger - nothing to fear As deadly elemental isotopes spew into the biosphere "The unleashed power of the atom..." - A warning from the past The benefits of technology are reversed by careless human error Science, once a saviour, now an effective destroyer We must apply our knowledge with care Entombed in concrete, Chernobyl will forever remain A monument to the chilling effects of negligence

[@tarkus1056]

I dont remember where I heard someone saying that in And Justice For All James sings like its a big feral dog barking.

[@janeg6759]

I'm about to open up here. So, I was introduced to Metallica at a young age and this album didn't leave my cassette player for a good year. This song resonated with me on a deep level back then as I had very absent parents. So, for me, this song made me feel not so alone in the world. And I have always appreciated Metallica's aggressive, thrashy side. I actually haven't listened to much after "the black album". I will always call it that too 😁. Thanks for the react/analysis as always.

[@CriticalReactions]

I can't wholesale recommend Load, Reload, or St. Anger but all 3 have some fantastic moodier tracks -- which I totally get is usually the opposite of what Metallica fans want. Until It Sleeps, The Memory Remains, Unforgiven II, The Unnamed Feeling,

[@shryggur]

It's funny how many of us were into this album in our childhood or teen years, even though it was one of the most fearsome albums to date (well, easily available at least). I was about 8 back then and I didn't consider it as brutal as I do now, even though now I know much more extreme music. I even found AJfA funny at places, imagine that

[@shryggur]

​@Critical Reactions I'd actually wholeheartedly say to give all these albums at least one more go. They're very versatile, and I believe it's easy to find something for anyone when listening without expecting good ole 'tallica

[@CriticalReactions]

@@shryggur For sure. There's some bangers on Load/Reload like King Nothing and House That Jack Built. Plus St. Anger has what's probably my favorite Metallica song to date: All Within My Hands. I'm definitely a bigger fan of this period than their thrash stuff.

[@jonathanhenderson9422]

Load and Reload have some really good songs but they were bloated with a lot of filler too. Could've been a killer single album with the best tracks selected. I don't care much for St. Anger--the production alone makes it almost unlistenable, but I also hate that they basically completely eliminated Kirk Hammett's lead guitar. Their last three albums have been pretty solid, but not much better than solid. I actually quite like most of Death Magnetic, and while Hardwired is also bloated it has a few of their best songs, especially Spit Out the Bone. Their latest hasn't grown on me yet, but I've only heard it twice. It seems like it was trying to find a real middle ground between their melodic, alternative rock side and their punkier side with a few nods to thrash thrown in.

[@robweaver7153]

Top 5 Met song

[@HideousConformity]

Religious parents... Not something I'd wish on anyone.

[@h.p.dominocus]

This is considered a classic Metallica track which many people love. The band were a bit more experimental on this album with shifting time signatures on the 2nd track in particular. I agree the Load and Reload stuff is actually good as well as songs like Welcome Home Sanitarium. Fade To Black is also great. They can write some great songs. I noticed some die hard metal fans seem to hate the more melodic songs for whatever reason.

[@CriticalReactions]

I need that melodic side in my metal so I'm happy that Metallica explores that side as often as they do.

[@OrthodoxGoregod]

Hello Brian! If You want to hear a great progressive thrash stuff, please check this amazing band: Infernal Majesty and their most brilliant album from 1998: Unholier Than Thou. I think You will enjoy it!

[@MaaZeus]

I just want to point out that while technically the "black album" is actually self titled everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, calls it The Black album and has called it ever since it was released. No point trying to reprogram your brain to learn a new name which no music listener (outside of few nitpicky "ackshually" people) uses in real life. 😅

[@CriticalReactions]

That's a fantastic point.

[@kevinmadden3396]

I think you're giving Kirk Hammett way too much credit on the guitar solo. I think he might just be that bad lol. I say this as a person who once viewed Metallica (circa "Justice") as his favorite band. I do appreciate your analysis, though.

[@apocalypse3485]

He totally deserves (or deserved) the credits for that, it's a great solo. Kirk used to be a great guitarist back in the 80s, in my opinion.

[@AnibalAvelar]

For me it's the Kirk's better solo, it has everything: fast scale runs, tremlo picking, tapping, hammer ons, full offs, full step bends on the 22nd fret ...

[@musiclover01ization]

I thought this song was pretty good. I personally disagree with you on the intro. I thought the intro was fine. The rest on the song was great especially the solo.

[@hackerslasher228]

It sounds better with Bass on the record And Justice for Jason ❤😅

[@thegrimner]

Like just about everyone else getting into music in the 90s, Metallica made up a huge part of my upbringing. But for a few reasons, this album never stuck with me, chief mong all the reasons is the dry production work. It all sounds a bit too dry and rigid on this one, and this might be where I find the most kinship with your general dislike of pedal tone abuse.