The Load album signaled the Metallica's re-entry to the musical landscape, approximately five years after the release of their international smash success, Metallica (informally known as the Black Album).
Load saw the band embrace a collective sound and identity far removed from their thrash metal roots, again some fans cried 'sell out'. Regardless, the album was hugely popular.
As on previous releases, the fourteen songs that would eventually make up the album began as rough demos created by principal lyric and music writers James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich in Ulrich's basement recording studio, "The Dungeon."
The band took over 30 demos into The Plant Studios in the spring of 1995 where they would work for approximately the next year.
Once again, Metallica teamed up with famed producer Bob Rock, who had been at the helm during the recording process for Metallica's Black Album.
Metallica's Load Lyrics
Ain't My Bitch
2 x 4
The House Jack Built
Until It Sleeps
King Nothing
Hero Of The Day
Bleeding Me
Cure
Poor Twisted Me
Wasting My Hate
Mama Said
Thorn Within
Ronnie
The Outlaw Torn
The songwriting dispenses almost entirely with Metallica's traditional thrash metal style that characterized the band's sound in the 1980s. In place of staccato riffs, Hetfield and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett experimented with more blues based tones and style and a lot of minor chords.
As the group had become friends with country star Waylon Jennings prior to the recording of Load, he is often credited as influential to the album's new sound, particularly songs like "Mama Said."
Additionally, Ulrich adopted a minimalist approach to his drum recording, abandoning the speed and complex double bass patterns of previous albums, this resulted in a more 'modern' sounding album.
James Hetfield displayed a lyrical evolution as well, writing what many feel to be his most personal and introspective lyrics. "Until it Sleeps," the album's lead single, addressed his father's losing battle with cancer, while "Mama Said" explored his relationship with his mother. This was a clear a departure from the political and social overtones of albums like ...And Justice for All and Master of Puppets and was deeply more personal to him. It's nothing like the pure do the lyrics by the numbers effort of Hardwired.
The cover of the album is original artwork entitled "Semen and Blood III." It is one of three photographic studies by Andres Serrano created in 1990 by mingling the artist's own semen and bovine blood between two sheets of Plexiglas.
Here's the lyrics to the partner album to Load, Reload. While it was considered a 'leftovers' album, it was the best kind of left overs where some of the songs, tasted better the morning after!
