Featured Essay: Metallica’s Load at 30

by Mike Rastiello

By the time Load, Metallica’s sixth studio album, had come out in 1996, I was already a Metallica fan. I had all of their previous albums and listened to them often. Maybe obsessively. Maybe mind your business.

But Load? Load was my first new Metallica album as a fan.

The Black Album had come out when I was 10, and I was just beginning my musical awakening thanks to Nirvana. I wouldn’t come to find Metallica for a few more years.

Load came out the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. I remember when the first single, “Until It Sleeps,” came out a few months before, and I really liked it, but I did notice how different it sounded from the previous five albums that were seared into my brain. That didn’t jump out to me as a bad thing, but my friend group certainly hated the song and hated the album before it even came out.

I bought Load the day it came out. After school, I walked to Ames (a department store similar to Kmart, if you’re not familiar) and wandered over to the electronics section. They only had a few copies left. I excitedly brought the album up to the clerk, paid, and rushed home. 

Once home, I tore the plastic off the CD, put the disc in my boombox, and cranked the volume. I was hooked from the first drum hits. The next 80 minutes were spent sitting perfectly still on my bed with both speakers pointing directly at my head.

I saw Metallica on tour for this album in 1997, at the then-named Brendan Byrne Arena in The Meadowlands of New Jersey. This was my third concert ever, but my first one without parents or any adults. I had this tour poster on my walls for most of high school.

My friends’ parents and my parents hired a driver to take my two friends and me back and forth to the arena, and we thought we were hot shit. Cut to our hot shit seats in the rafters of the building, but we were close enough - we were in the same building as our favorite band. A year later, we’d see them again as they supported Reload, but this time it was at Giants Stadium, just across the parking lot from where the first show was.

I remember hanging out with a friend in his basement, listening to this album. He excitedly remembered that he had a strobe light and quickly set it up. During a particular rocking part of “Bleeding Me,” he said ”watch this!” and attempted a back flip onto a bed, and promptly bounced off and smacked his face into the nearby wall.

My favorite songs on the album:

It’s no surprise to me that my favorite songs on the album are among the longest. I always loved a long Metallica song.

Bleeding Me

This song deals a lot with James’ alcohol abuse, and his starting his journey with therapy. I didn’t know this at the time, but looking back on the lyrics now, it’s painfully obvious.

What hooked me was the slow-building intro into mellow lyrics, followed by a back-and-forth between the slower, mellow parts and the driving guitars and drums. I love a good slow burn.

The Outlaw Torn

Much like Bleeding Me, it’s a slow burn.

As an album with minimal (or no) guitar solos, I also love the mini jam session that ends this song.

There are some songs that I think are weaker, but overall, I really enjoy this album.

There was a lot of backlash about the album and the band’s new look. I didn’t fall into that trap, and it really hurt that so many people - including my friend group - hated the new album by my favorite band at the time.

This album is still controversial amongst Metallica fans. The band also has mixed feelings about Load and Reload, but Load did go Platinum 27 times total across 14 countries, and they continually play songs from these albums live to this day.

Thirty years later, and Load still has a place in my heart, though I don’t listen to it a ton, or any of the metal and harder stuff that I listened to exclusively throughout high school. I probably hadn’t listened to any Metallica albums for close to 20 years when I found old pressings of Master of Puppets and …And Justice for All at a record show.

I’m also a St. Anger fan.

Mike has been a lifelong music fanatic since the ripe old age of 4 when he took his parents’ cassette of Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits—Volume I & Volume II and claimed it as his own. Forty years later, Mike remains a moody and opinionated music lover. His favorite bands include Bruce Springsteen, Queens of the Stone Age, The National, and Deftones. Mike lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife Ali, his dog Poppy, and his record collection.

He writes and curates a monthly newsletter and playlist that can be found at www.downbeat.fm. He is @mikerastiello on Bluesky, and his other socials can be found at mike.fail.