Reload (1997)
Reload is a 1997 alternative rock album by Metallica.
Recorded in the same 1996 sessions as Load and split off into its own release, Reload finds Metallica deep in a mid-career reinvention. The thrash speed of the 1980s gives way to bluesy hard rock, radio-length hooks, and a looser groove under Bob Rock's production. James Hetfield's snarl anchors singles like 'The Memory Remains,' which brings in Marianne Faithfull, and the churning 'Fuel.' It marks the last Metallica studio record with bassist Jason Newsted and the first to invite a guest vocalist. Fans of the band's raw beginnings met it with suspicion; others heard a band stretching.
Quick answers
What is Reload about?
Recorded in the same 1996 sessions as Load and split off into its own release, Reload finds Metallica deep in a mid-career reinvention. The thrash speed of the 1980s gives way to bluesy hard rock, radio-length hooks, and a looser groove under Bob Rock's production. James Hetfield's snarl anchors singles like 'The Memory Remains,' which brings in Marianne Faithfull, and the churning 'Fuel.' It marks the last Metallica studio record with bassist Jason Newsted and the first to invite a guest vocalist. Fans of the band's raw beginnings met it with suspicion; others heard a band stretching.
When was Reload released?
Reload was released in 1997.
Who made Reload?
Reload is by Metallica.
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A few thoughts on Reload
Metallica: Through the Never turns the band's live show into a nightmarish narrative film, a natural next stop for anyone drawn to this era's theatrics. The concert documentary Some Kind of Monster later exposes the tension only hinted at here. For a playable dose, Guitar Hero: Metallica puts these riffs in your hands.
Metallica's own catalog, from the albums to the studio meltdown
Reload split off from the same 1996 sessions as Load, catching Metallica mid-reinvention. The Black Album, Death Magnetic, St. Anger, and Load trace that same arc across three more decades, Guitar Hero: Metallica lets you play it, and Some Kind of Monster and Through the Never put the band on screen, one cracking apart in the studio and the other filling a stadium.
The heavy metal records that came before Reload
Reload arrives after Metallica had already spent a decade slowing down and thickening its sound with blues and groove. Black Sabbath's Paranoid and Iron Maiden's The Number of the Beast supply the genre's original riff-heavy blueprint, AC/DC's Back in Black shows hard rock hooks working at stadium scale, and Led Zeppelin IV proves the blues-rock roots Metallica was circling back toward all along.