This was Metallica's first album following beloved bassist Cliff Burton's death. Despite the tragedy, they were still riding high on the momentum of Master of Puppets, and after replacing their fallen comrade with Flotsam & Jetsam bassist Jason Newsted fans expected a similarly heavy follow-up. If there was ever a time to play it safe and make Master of Puppets 2, this was it. Instead, Justice is an album of overly-complex progressive metal which would have made Emerson, Lake & Palmer proud. In addition Newsted's bass is almost absent, with the whole album sounding thin and shallow, with no bottom-end. Theres a long-standing story that the final mix was part of Newsted's hazing. If thats the case, Metallica had a lot of guts risking their careers just to put their newest member in his place, especially since they were already not the most prolific of bands (the interim between albums was steadily growing, but more on that later). Despite the crappy mix And Justice for All became their biggest album to-date (currently the second-best selling album in their entire catalog), largely due to yet-another pseudo-ballad, One. It is also considered by Metallica diehards to be their last great album.
D.M. Anderson works and lives in Portland Oregon. He is the author of two young adult novels (Killer Cows & Shaken) and a collection of dark tales (With the Wicked). He has also published several short stories which have appeared (or will appear) in various anthologies and magazines such as 69 Flavors of Paranoia, Night Terrors, Trembles, Encounters, Implosion, Strange Fucking Stories, Perpetual Motion Machine. He documents his adventures in the dark on on his movie site, Free Kittens Movie Guide
