Metal Music Blog

As I mentioned few days ago, I have been reading a book of Metallica (Justice for All: The Truth About Metallica), and I promised to write a review of the book. So, this article is my review of book “Metallica”, written by Joel McIver. In this review I describe how the book is written and what kind of content there is, as well as what is my personal experience of the book.

Joel McIver (born 1971) is a rock journalist, author and musician, who has written to magazines such as Record Collector, Metal Hammer, Total Guitar and Kerrang! He has also written Extreme Metal, Queens of the Stone Age: The Unofficial Story, Nu-Metal: The Next Generation, Slipknot: Unmasked, Ice Cube: Attitude and Erykah Badu: The First Lady of Neo Soul.

Justice for All: The Truth About Metallica is an uncensored story of the world’s biggest and best known metal band. As a metal band Metallica has revolutionized the whole field of heavy music with their classic albums Master of Puppets, …And Justice for All and Black Album. This big music epos tells the interesting story of Metallica from early day’s drunken club gigs to today’s gigantic stadium concerts. The book also tells about the endless tours around the world, the death of bassist Cliff Burton, rehabilitations and many other things you do not hear daily. In this book of Metallica, author Joel McIver cuts off the myths connected to Metallica during the years, reviews every single album and DVD and describes how heavy music has evolved from 1980’s to these days. Foreword of the book is written by Thomas Gabriel Fischer from Celtic Frost.

McIver uses lots of interviews of other known bands, producers, staff and other people who have worked with Metallica, as a basis for the story. For example, McIver has interviewed people like Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth), Tom Araya (Slayer), Jeff Beccera (Possessed), John Bush (Anthrax, Armored Saint), Max Cavalera (Soulfly, Sepultura), Jeff Dunn (Venom), Scott Ian (Anthrax), Sean Harris (Diamond Head), King Diamond (Diamond Head, Mercyful Fate), Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister (Motörhead), Dave Mustaine (Metallica, Megadeth), Jason Newsted (Metallica, Voivod), Steve Tucker (Morbid Angel) and many other interesting persons.

The book contains 25 chapters as well as the foreword, introduction, list of sources, discography, Internet links and an index. The book I read (translated to Finnish) contains 440 pages, written in small font and line space. Shortly said, there is very much to read. For Metallica fans this book is a great source of information. For those looking for quick information of Metallica this book might be too big to read.

Joel McIver writes very much, more than half of the book, about Metallica in 1980’s, which is absolutely great. McIver stars the book by introducing Metallica members and describing their youth. He continues by telling how Metallica was born and how they quickly reached a number of fans in Bay Area. Additionally McIver tells much about how trash metal was born and developed during the early 80’s. There are lots of great details of Metallica and band members in this book. For example, James Hetfield was 15 or 16 he went to a festival with his friend who had cut his ticket into smaller pieces and sold them as LSD rags. The money he got was used to beer. James was amazed and thought “man, what kind of business is THIS“? Another interesting story was about the first time Lars and James played together. Lars had been looking for a band and somehow he came across with James. Lars and James played together, and James thought “Lars must be the worst drummer in this world”! Lars was not able to stay in rhythm with his lousy drum set that included only one symbal. The symbal holder collapsed every now and then and guys had to stop playing until Lars rebuilt his drum set.

Joel McIver continues by talking about Bay Area trashers, gigs in San Francisco, glam rock bands and the birth of trash metal. He also describes how Cliff Burton joined the band and how Metallica survived their early years as homeless dudes in New York. McIver describes how Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets were born and how Metallica started to become the number one trash metal band in scene. He talks about the death of Cliff Burton and the details of those that tragedy. McIver continues the story by describing how Jason Newsted joined the band and how the great …And Justice for All album was created and why there is no bass almost at all.

After talking much about Metallica in 1980’s, Joel McIver continues by describing how Metallica recorded garage albums and their best known album, Black. At this point Metallica started to loose their popularity and band members had difficulties with alcohol and each others. Joel McIver provides many details of those difficult times of Metallica.

After year 2000 Metallica has started to become popular again. Joel McIver tells about Load and Reload albums and gives his staggering review of those two, probably the worst Metallica albums ever. McIver tells about the Napster conflict and how Jason Newsted left the band. Finally McIver describes how Metallica went to rehabilitation and came back with new energy and attitude.

Justice for All: The Truth About Metallica is great. I love it. There is so much interesting details of the early days of the band, members of the band and other bands on those days. There are lots of interviews of known metal bands, good album reviews and a number of great pictures from early days to 2000. The book is just fantastic and I have nothing to complain. It is never boring and there is enough to read. The content is good and well organized and McIver’s approach is analytic and straightforward. I thought many times “isn’t there anything negative in this book” and I just was not able to find. This book is great, fantastic and fabulous. It is an awesome story of an awesome band. If you are interested in Metallica, trash metal and 1980’s metal music, get this book. You’ll love it!

All pictures from Metallica homepage and MySpace site.