10 Metal Bands That Changed Their Sound

When Metallica entered the next decade of their career, no thrash fan was prepared for what the Black Album was going to do. Bringing in Bob Rock to oversee production, the sound of Metallica pretty much changed overnight, keeping the thrashiness of their early work and putting it in a tighter format for rock radio, with songs that hit like a sledgehammer like Enter Sandman and Sad But True. That was 1990 though, and a funny thing happened once the grunge era of rock and roll took over the world.

To try and blend in with the times, almost half of Load was Metallica's attempt to chase the alternative crowd, having more bluesy textures in their sound and laying off on the face melting solos most of the time. Though most metal fans were pissed off that the band had the gall to cut their hair at the time, that's only a drop in the bucket when it comes to the changes here, from rewriting Enter Sandman from the ground up on King Nothing to having a full on country song from James Hetfield on Mama Said.

For every metal fan that was pissed about the sudden change though, Load has actually held up pretty well in some regards, blending in with the more hard rock styles of a band like Alice in Chains and settling into a decent groove on tracks like the House Jack Built or the 8 minute exercise of Bleeding Me. Then again, since we have records like St. Anger and Lulu to compare it to these days, hearing a '90s version of Metallica still feels fairly compelling.