BATTERY

Metallica- Master Of Puppets (Universal Music Group)
European Reissue, 2008
Black Vinyl /??

I think most people around my age (born in the early 80's) could say that some of their earliest exposure to Heavy Metal was via Metallica. My earliest memories of anything remotely heavy were of some of the film clips from the Black album playing on a local video clip show. Though I was always familiar with this portion of their career as a result, my real interest in more popular metal didn't come about until years later via Pantera and "The Great Southern Trendkill". From there I explored the heavier and more evil end of the spectrum like Slayer and early Sepultura, and then American and European Death Metal. Metallica was just something I never paid any attention to, probably because I came up in a period when nearly every older, experienced metalhead that I met would write them off as a result of any work of theirs that followed "And Justice For All...". I'd taken a light interest in that album (and a much stronger one in the last few years), but nothing before it even came onto my radar.
Though I'm certainly still no fiend, I've taken some time to explore the bands Burton era albums in the last few years, probably more so as a bit of task then as a genuine vested interest. From what I can gather, the general consensus amongst the wider metal community is that "Ride The Lightning" is the bands crowning work, though of the first three, I'd have to say that that album is their weakest. This one is my favourite- "Master Of Puppets".
As stupid as it may sound with what I've just said in mind, I feel that no proper metal record collection should be without this bands earliest work, if just from a cataloguing point of view. It's an OCD thing I have with collecting and probably why I made myself explore their music, so I wouldn't feel stupid dropping cash on their product. This is a 2008 Universal Records reissue of the album on black vinyl. At least, I think it is anyway. This bands entire catalogue has been re-issued and re-pressed so many times over the years that it's hard to keep track, even with the help of Discogs. I doubt I need to explain though, influential, thrashing metal glory, this pressing being pretty faithful to the original.