Review by Adam M on January 2, 2020.

Master of Puppets is the album where everything came together for Metallica. Balancing out storming compositions like Battery with more brooding and epic ones like Leper Messiah, the band was able to produce their most well-rounded album to date. It also has the mandatory instrumental in Orion, which is far and away one of the most interesting songs the band has ever come up with.

There is a nice mixture between power and finesse on this album and it never lets the pedal off of the metal. The songs can be epic at times, but at others just content to thrash away in a more simplistic style. For a thrash album, this is a really intelligently put together collection of songs that rarely drags. Sure, the band had come up with a hit in Ride the Lightning, but the atmosphere and quality of the songs has been increased immeasurably. The riffing can be melodic or pummeling depending on the portion of the song and the guitar solos are a wonder to behold. After this the band would go on to release one more excellent album, ...And Justice for All, before falling downhill. They would never repeat the quality of this album, however, and it remains a stalwart in the thrash metal genre along with albums like Reign in Blood and Rust in Peace. It is simply loaded with quality from beginning to end and features enough changes and interesting elements to keep you coming back time and time again.

This is absolutely one of the mandatory classic metal purchases and should be owned by any fans of older heavy metal. It still has its impact today with the power that the band brought to the table here. Thrash fans should consider themselves lucky to have such a well-crafted album to be able to appreciate.

Rating: 9.3 out of 10

Review by JD on October 27, 2015.

I have been given a kind of strange one here named Nihilistinen Barbaarisuus, ambient black metal, sung completely in Finnish and coming out of Philadelphia PA and not from Helsinki. Yes, I just told you what you read… strange huh? Let us dive right in and see what this is all about.

On the surface, the music is harsh and sparse sounding, with the vocals nearly lost in the mix as some sort of whispering aggressive sound that even if it was sung in some other language, is completely non-legible. Unlike Emperor’s vocal sound which is still legible, Nihlistinen Barbaarisuus seem to just be plainly lost in the cacophony of what was happening.

The shocker of the whole thing, is that the guitarist Mika Mage is the guitarist for one of my favorite progressive instrumental acts Lawrence’s Creation. While LC was amazing filled with amazing riffs, stupendous arrangements and mind blowing melodies Nihlistinen Barbaarisuus is dark and brooding with little of the way of melody variety and has none of the brilliance that LC had brought. NB is just a wall of sound and that is not the good sort of ‘wall of sound’ either.

Plainly put and I will be blunt as hell; the whole album is just forgettable and uninspired. Guess Mr. Mage needs to rethink his involvement here. If you want black metal, pull out your Venom collection or the first couple of Bathory records and use this CD as a convenient coaster for your drink as you listen to Venom on the stereo. Never give in to the urge to actually play this album – car crashes are interesting to see, but you never want to have one.

This album needs to be ignored, for the sake of metal everywhere.

Rating: 0.5 out of 10