Kirk Hammett Teases Metallica Might Return to ‘Load’ and ‘Reload’ Style on Future Albums

Metallica kicked off their career with a series of top-notch thrash metal albums. Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning, and Master of Puppets set the standard for what fans would expect from the band. Then, things started to change after the death of bassist Cliff Burton. Their final album of the ’80s and first with bassist Jason Newstead, …And Justice for All, marked a shift in the band’s style. Then came the ’90s with their self-titled album, Load, and Reload marking large departures from the band’s style. Kirk Hammett suggested that they may return to that era’s sound in future recordings.

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Recently, Hammett appeared on the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast. During his conversation, he talked about writing riffs for the next Metallica album. Then, he revealed that revisiting the band’s ’90s sound isn’t off the table.

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Kirk Hammett on Reprising Metallica’s ’90s Sound

The podcast host suggested that it would be interesting to see Metallica return to the style they captured in the ’90s with Load and Reload. “Who knows? We might just say, ‘Okay, let’s go back to the ’90s again.’ It’s not a bad idea,” Hammett replied. “We haven’t said that to each other yet,” he added.

“It’s interesting because when Load and Reload came out, there was a lot of derision, there was a lot of backlash,” he recalled. “It was too much change. We changed our appearance, we changed our sound, we changed the way we recorded,” he explained. “I was even playing different guitars and tuning to f**king E flat and listening to a lot of blues and jazz. So, all those factors came out in Load and Reload.”

Many longtime fans of the band were displeased with their 1991 self-titled album but were still willing to see what Metallica would do next. When Load came out in 1996, most of those fans tuned out. The next year, when Reload hit shelves, even more fans jumped ship. However, the albums have received a kind of reappraisal in recent years.

“Nowadays, I run into fans and they love that era,” Hammett said. “Nowadays we play ‘Fuel’ and people go nuts,” he added.

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