Thrashcast Episode 7: Metallica's "...And Justice For All" from 1988
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Thrashcast is the place to find riveting discussions on classic thrash albums, news and reviews. Your hosts are three thrash loving maniacs who grew up during the golden age of the genre. Kenneth, Billy and Jim will get together weekly to bring you a deep dive on some of your favourite thrash records.
Show Notes:
Episode Seven: Metallica's ...And Justice For All (1988). This is the 4th studio release from the Bay Area thrashers and the first to feature new bassist Jason Newsted after the unfortunate death of Cliff Burton on Sept 27, 1986. Justice was released on Sept 6, 1988 on Elektra records and it became a thrash metal juggernaut breaking into the Billboard 200 and peaking at number six. The album remained on the charts for a staggering eighty three weeks and went platinum after 9 weeks in retail stores and sold more than 1.7 copies in the US by the end of 1988.
The album spawned three singles, with the third being "One". The song managed to make the radio airways and the first ever video came shortly after. The band even received a Grammy nomination; however losing out to Jehtro Tull. Justice is a musically progressive album featuring long songs, many of them complex with fast tempos and few verse-chorus structures.
Founding guitarist Bobby Gustafson left the band after a disagreement with Blitz and D.D. Verni. Drummer Sid Falck would depart from the band shortly after the completion of Horrorscope and was replaced with Tim Mallare. Despite the changing of the musical landscape of the 90's, Overkill would carve out an impressive total of six studio recordings and was the most active among thrash bands recording music in that decade.
Fun fact: The song One was inspired by Johnny Got His Gun by writer Dalton Trumbo. The song To Live, Is To Die is an instrumental based around a poem written previously by Cliff Burton. The song is also a fitting tribute to the death of their friend.
Final thoughts: According to writer Christopher Knowles, Metallica took the thrash concept to it's logical conclusion on this album.
Kenneth Gallant, HMS
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