10 Decent Albums With Way Too Much Filler

For all of the faults that Metallica have given their fans to complain about in recent years, the sellout period of this band is looking a lot better in retrospect. Compared to the mountain of crap that comes from the likes of Lulu, the passable grooves present on Load are looking like flawless masterpieces in hindsight. However, ReLoad starts to show where the mainstream version of Metallica starts to run out of steam.

It's almost painful to say that though, considering this is one of their most adventurous album in their career. In many respects, this is much heavier than Load, with Fuel being a prime candidate for one of the best single cuts they have ever released. There are even some more mellow moments that stick out, with Devil's Dance and Low Man's Lyric giving you a different flavor of the thrash legends you knew and loved.

That alone can't save this album from the monster ballads though, which build to nearly 7 minute exercises of nothingness like on the back end of something like Carpe Diem Baby. Even some of the decent riff work on here like Fixxxer does not warrant the played out 8 minute length. In the Some Kind of Monster movie, James Hetfield brings up this era as Metallica whipping any piece of garbage into shape, and when you look at the tracks on here, it's not hard to see why.