THE MEMORY REMAINS

One of the better singles from Metallica's often underrated and wrongly dismissed 1997 release, 'Reload', 'The Memory Remains' is pure hard rock at its finest. With plenty of hooks, catchy sing-along lyrics, and "that vocal melody" (one of the few Metallica songs with a guest vocalist, British singer Marianne Faithfull), it holds up well as one of the better songs from the album.

Included with the title track are two demos. The first, 'Fuel for Fire', is a demo in progress of arguably the records most popular and well-known track, 'Fuel'. Admittedly, the lyrics are pretty laughable, but then, it's easy to say that when comparing it to the finished version we all know and love.

Then there's a demo of 'The Memory Remains', which is pretty terrible. Overly long, with very few distinguishable lyrics, most of it is just James Hetfield singing 'la la la' and 'na na na' over and over. Still, it's a rare look at what the band originally had intended, and if nothing else, this is what singles are made for.

Decent enough single for collectors only.