Metallica
recorded so much material for
Load
-- their first album in five years -- that they had to leave many songs unfinished, otherwise they would have missed their deadline. During the supporting tour for
, they continued to work on the unfinished material, as well as write new songs, and they soon had enough material for a new album,
Reload
. The title suggests that
simply is a retread of its predecessor, and in many ways that's correct -- there's still too much bone-headed, heavy
Southern rock
for it to be anything other than the sequel to
-- but there's enough left curves to make it a better record.
Marianne Faithfull
's backing vocals on
"The Memory Remains"
complement the weird, uneasy melody, and
"Where the Wild Things Are"
has an eerie menace that
never achieved on
. There are also a couple of
ballads
and country-rockers that don't work quite so well (it's never a good idea to have an explicit sequel, as on
"The Unforgiven II"
), and that, along with a few plodding
-by-numbers, is what keeps
from being a full success. Still, the towering closer,
"Fixxxer,"
along with handful of cuts that successfully push the outer edges of
's sound, make the record worthwhile. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine