MASTER OF PUPPETS

Overall, I think this effort is far less consistent than Ride the Lightning. That said, it does have the quintessential metal song, Master of Puppets. None of the songs drag, but also are much less distinctive in style than on Ride the Lightning. There are, of course, exceptions such as Welcome Home and Orion.

Despite this, this is a great album if one if interested in half of the influence of prog metal bands. Metallica did really prime the setting for heavy rock. In a progressive context, Metallica - as remained true - offers scraps. Their song is based directly out of the blues --> hard rock --> metal category. Although they promoted musicianship their strict adherence to guitar, bass, an drums creates a massive chasm between progressive music and what Metallica plays. They had little interest in incorporating a diversity of musical styles to Master of Puppets, which worked great (for the most part) considering their style. But for prog fans, this is valuable only as background to progressive metal.