Load (1996) - Metallica - Album Review
9.2/10
By O. Jacobs
Originally Published in 2021, now with a new Introduction and revision for 2026
Load (1996)
[Left to Right] - Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett, Newsted (1996)
INTRODUCTION
Dublin 2026 - Night 2, The dust has settled… Nothing but the buzz of colliding vocal reverb throughout Aviva stadium, after a rip-roaring opening barrage of ‘Whiplash’ / ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ / ‘Ride The Lightning’, and quickly after mention of ‘a special one’ from show-leader Hetfield, does the pretty snare roll of ‘Until it Sleeps’ spill into the arena for all to hear. A track from ‘Load’ (1996) I have yet to check off of my live setlist gem collection. What a moment…
Lars Ulrich [Pictured] - Aviva Stadium / Dublin, Ireland (2026)
James Hetfield [Pictured] - Aviva Stadium / Dublin, Ireland (2026)
Circa teenage years - Break-ups, weightlifting, concussions… Broken bones, bleeding gums, and ice baths. Running beyond the fences, clutching your fist until it’s white as bone. Screaming into a pillow until you’re hoarse - it’s all there, laid out in the fine print. It’s ‘Hero of the Day’ reminding you why you got up today. That no one can stop you but you. That you have a responsibility not to give up, and to take pleasure in upsetting the enemy. It’s putting your ancestry and the trauma that came along with you on your back, and trudging uphill.
The Sorrow of the Father - Wringing emotion out to spill upon the tile, like liquid from a dripping cloth. Twisting in hands smeared by bourbon honey; feeling your eyes roll back into your head as the last inch of your mask falls from your face - you’ve nothing left to give but the blood in your veins. It’s ‘Bleeding Me’, as your body is strewn across the bed, weighted and lifeless. Dissociating, and rebirthing - all in the same suite of eight minutes.
Driving home - [literally anywhere, and any time], like an invasion from beyond the horizon; like watching the sun being blacked out in the sky… Like eyes widening at a Lovecraftian horror, or the feeling of becoming breathless out of nowhere - does the intro crawl of ‘The Outlaw Torn’ slowly swell itself into your psyche. It permeates every crevice of your mind, it bleeds out of your ears and down the sides of your jawline… It’s the perfect Metallica song, and it is massive.
At least, in 1996 that is… That’s for damn sure.
‘Load’ and its soundtrack is the great hallway of memories, which has been erected in honor of all I have done good and bad. It’s the face on a bad day you don’t want to see in the mirror, at the exact same moment it’s the smile of overconfidence as you lurch into the fray of unruly behavior, bound to relearn the same lesson you’ve already learned the hard way 1,000 times before.
Metallica may have climbed to the summit of the mainstream Mount Everest with their 1991 hard-rock magnum opus, but in 1996 - they lit a match and burned the whole bitch down. They stood by the flame of prediction, expectation, and assumption into which direction they were bound to go, and chose to go beneath the crust of their own egos - all neatly packaged within promotional material that [quite literally] subconsciously communicated that it was as unserious as a jerk-session in a midwest motel bathroom.
I’m not gonna explain that one, and I shouldn’t have to…
‘Load’ is reality, ‘Load’ is the monster under the bed you don’t want to admit you’re afraid of. The lesson here is when you choose to look your demons in the eye and swallow the unimaginable fear while taking it on the nose, you might just come out the other side a better human; maybe even a different being entirely.
Is it that serious?
Is it that deep?
Maybe not…
But, then again - maybe it really is.
Anything that ‘could be’, while in a state of a ‘hypothetical’ - becomes.
And I have seen that place; I have heard that place, and I have returned from that place. And like the rest of us, I’ll always have a lot of work to do - A lot of pushing the stone uphill yet to be paid in this life of mine.
But ‘Load’ told me I didn’t have to do it in fear. You can use your anger, your frustration, your sadness and despair - as a tool to rectify what the dark has taken from you.
On we go, through the endless wasteland…
Looking for meaning under rocks and stones, and pieces of plywood… mounds of dirt.
And no one ever told us it all lies within.
Give Me Grunge
or Give me Death:
Why I will defend Metallica’s ‘Load’
to my dying breath.
& commemorating the controversial album’s
25th 30th anniversary.
June 4th, 2026 marks 30 years post a massive change in Metallica’s direction, when at the time they were arguably the biggest heavy metal band in the world [and still very much so all these years later, even if all members are nearing 65 years of age.]
If The Black Album - Metallica (1991) acts as the peak of Metallica’s trip of confidence and ultimate mainstream power, then their 1996 effort ‘Load’ is the foreshadowing of a career nightmare looming overhead, as the high begins to wear off and the band begins to descend on their own comedown.
Lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield is forced to look his own demons directly in the eye for the first time in lyrical form [at least in the way we see on ‘Load’, vulnerable, afraid, warts-and-all] and the album’s grunge-like undertone helped convey these messages in the mid-nineties - when the likes of Nirvana, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam ruled the radio.
Drummer Lars Ulrich takes an opportunity to strip down his thrashing a bit, and push out groovier and more improvised fills rather than the trademark double-bass beats of years prior; and critics were quick to label it as lazy and underwhelming.
Pretty difficult to watch them go from ‘Dyers Eve’ to ‘Until it Sleeps’ in only two albums huh… [Not for me, but like - maybe for you.]
Lead guitarist Kirk Hammett enters his love-hate relationship with the wah-pedal and more experimental solos, and the now-seasoned bassist Jason Newsted finally feels like he is a part of the band [kinda-sorta, let’s just pretend] with his beefy groove rumblings wafting through the speakers on the band’s two most recent releases.
As many argue what ‘should have been’ on 1988’s ‘...And Justice For All’.
Where do you go after reaching Beatle-mania level recognition with a self-titled album that spawns enough singles to make your head spin, that are STILL for the most part all you’ll hear of Metallica today on the air? … [unless you’re a SiriusXM ‘Maximum Metallica’ frequenter.]
Fresh haircuts all around, Lars’ eyeliner and nipple piercings, Kirk’s painted-black fingernails and buckets of cocaine sweat; and somehow still an argument can be made that the band manages to possibly sound angrier in this era than their previous fifteen years together. [See the Cunning Stunts live DVD for proof of this.] Yeah, it’s not Battery crescendoing ‘Seattle ‘89, but good god is there some serious oomf in the sound of this cowboy-biker-dad era.
Thank you, Jason Newsted-signed - original pressing ‘Load’ CD hanging on my wall - roll the credits… You did it, son.
While the majority of audiences were convinced Metallica’s trademark sound had been finally-fully sacrificed by 1996, most people would still agree their live atmosphere was nowhere close to being compromised... [No matter how deep Lars and Kirk seemed to gain interest in late-eighties / early-nineties contemporary art.]
Watch ‘Cunning Stunts’, seriously… The Kill / Ride Medley?! - I digress.
Apart from Load producing solid still-popular radio singles like ‘King Nothing’, ‘Until it Sleeps’ and ‘Hero of the Day’, the album stays slightly under the radar in Metallica’s catalog of fan favorites.
If criminally underrated slow-burner tracks like ‘Bleeding Me’ and ‘The Outlaw Torn’ had been featured on any mid-decade debut album by any other fresh-off-the-press ‘New’ grunge / rock band, ‘Load’ undoubtedly would have been hailed as one of the greatest grunge albums to come out of the nineties.
Do I think ‘Load’ is a full-on grunge album? Of course not… Just like I don’t think ‘St. Anger’ is a full-on nu metal album. Something happened to Metallica post 1991, and some of the subsequent releases literally listen as though they exist and arrived from ‘outside of time’.
A favorite quote from a Redbull.com Metallica review reminiscing on the ‘St. Anger’ days. My goodness is that accurate.
You don’t always have to like it, but you have to admire its immediate uniqueness and individuality. Can you name me another album that sounds like ‘Load’, ‘St. Anger’, or hell - even ‘Death Magnetic’ as late as ‘08? I’m almost certain you can’t…
‘Load’ is chock full of sludgy, heavy riffs; bonking you over the head like a scene out of ‘Roadhouse’. At nearly 80 minutes of material, there’s enough southern-hard rock groove to get any brain-bucket donning - crotch rocket wrangler onto his Harley. Yet, the Metallica name, already cemented into the thrash and heavy metal history books, keeps Load’s audience-success at bay.
Today you can still hear butt-hurt ‘Die-Hard’ fans talk about the ‘96-’97 era like Star Wars fans talk about the prequel trilogy... When in reality, it truly could not be farther from an equal comparison.
Sorry George, there’s no asian-speaking space diplomats to be seen here…
Don’t get me wrong, i’m certainly not making an argument that ‘Load’ should be considered a perfect album;
EVEN THOUGH I REALLY, REALLY WANT TO - RAAAAAAA *throws lamp
‘Wasting My Hate’ and ‘Poor Twisted Me’ are catchy songs, but borderline cheesy in the same vein as The Black Album’s ‘Don’t Tread on Me’. Enjoyable tracks that could have easily been left on the chopping block, making a great case for the album that ‘could have been’, if only the best tracks that Reload (1997) planned to offer were simply combined with the best of ‘Load’, but - Metallica had to have their own ‘Use Your Illusion I & II’... [Right Lars?.]
The mixing and mastering on this album is stellar. Say what you want about Bob Rock and his effect on the band after the sonic shift Metallica made upon his 1990 arrival, but that man knows how to make a god***n record.
Oh, ‘St. Anger’ you beautifully disgusting bastard…
I’m actually in the camp that Metallica’s recent remasterings of ‘Load’ and ‘Reload’ actually take away from the sonic canvas those albums painted and existed within. They were perfect, they were warm, you could almost hear the hum of the tape deck. Not everything needs to be louder and more compressed! RAHH! *shakes cane at the sky.
I don’t know what it is about ‘Load’ that continues to draw me in time after time, or why I preach that it is for certain - THE album I hold dearest to my heart. All I know is there is a call from the void, an endless yearning for the groove; a solace found in the solitude that very specific sound from that very specific time in that specific band’s history creates within my soul.
The controversial artwork by Andres Serrano, ‘Semen & Blood III’, [that Hetfield clearly recalls highly disliking.] Or maybe the blatant ‘F**k You’ statement Metallica made to their fans with the album as a whole - proving they can, and will do whatever they want musically, regardless of who chimes in to give their opinion.
Is that too brash? Is that the proper response when the fanbase majoritively goes: “Hey, so - what the f**ck is this?”
Does Metallica dig their own grave over the next five years gritting their teeth and sucking in tears, swearing up and down that the toe we just watched them stub on the coffee table didn’t hurt, even though we audibly heard the bone crack?
Maybe it’s the little details like the frampton-esque ‘talking-guitar’ style solo in ‘The House Jack Built’, or the skull-crushing stomp of ‘2x4’ that feels like what I'd imagine consuming an inordinate amount of steroids would feel like.
The dripping-with-regret vocal wailing of ‘Mama Said’, or the spiritually corrupt confession of ‘Thorn Within’. Maybe it’s simply because the opening creepy chord to ‘King Nothing’ is one of my earliest memories; listening to the mix-CD my dad made for me at only nine years old
And that was in 2008... scary.
The mix also featuring the almighty and cosmic ‘Orion’, early thrasher ballad ‘Fade to Black’, Craig Morgan’s country-pop ear-worm ‘International Harvester’, Dragonforce’s ‘Through The Fire and The Flames’, [thank you Guitar Hero] and probably a few Hannah Montana bops... [if I remember correctly.]
Music will almost always be passed on to the youth of the current era from the previous generation, so what you hear from your parents and older siblings will most likely have a lasting effect on you. My parents graduated in ‘92 and ‘94, so it only makes sense that ‘Load’ was heavy on my father’s mind at one point in time - being the young flannel-wearing punk that he probably was. [I’ve seen plenty of pictures.]
Now look at me… Defending an album’s honor released before I was even born.
Don’t I have anything better to do?
Will my closest friends ever get tired of my ceaseless ramblings about musical artifacts of the past?
Will I ever find true inner peace?
Who knows...
In closing, change is good. Change, especially in the aspect of music, should always be well received at face value, then appropriately criticized after its digestion. Although I do believe that far too many times, the personality and stigma around a band’s past and integrated style interferes with the listener’s ability to fairly judge an album for what it is, [not to be contrasted with who it came from.]
I encourage you to brush off that cracked and dusty jewel case, [or break into the $274 Remastered Deluxe Box Set]
HAHA! “Money good! Napster Bad!” lol… Nevermind.
…and give ‘Load’ its first listen in a while, because it truly has the capability of enduring the test of time, and evolving into something that can be appreciated as we enter new periods in musical history. I’ve said it hundreds of times before, and I'll say it again:
Music is subjective [as most people are aware] which means it is perfectly OK to not like something; Hell it’s OK to even loathe something… But to call yourself a fan of Metallica, and say ‘Load’ as an album is ‘awful’, ‘horrible’, or even ‘unlistenable’...
Well, you’d objectively be a f******g wanker.
Yes, I'm looking at you Phil Anselmo. I know what you said - and no, you cannot take it back.
Get rid of the makeup, the hair, the high stakes - and listen for what it is. Submerge yourself in the aesthetic and vibe they were going for. I think if you can shoo the Metallica brand out of your mind during a relisten, this monster with wrap you up in its arms and squeeze every ounce of emotion out of you.
This sh*t, BANGS.
And it will probably always be my favorite.
Happy 30th, album that came after 20x Platinum selling Metallica (1991).
You can rest now…
‘Load’, lives on.
Underdog for the win.
Metallica, forever.
YEAHHH-EEEE-YEAA-AAAHHH!!!
