It's not easy to follow up a mega-successful commercial breakthrough, and Metallica certainly made some choices when it was their time. In 1996, the band dropped Load, their long-awaited follow-up to their blockbuster Black Album. They reemerged with short haircuts, booked themselves a headlining slot on the Lollapalooza tour, and attempted to adapt the the reality of the grunge era. Load is a controversial record among Metallica diehards, but it definitely has some bangers. Also, it sold five million copies in the US alone and spun off the companion-piece record Reload, so somebody liked it. Now, Metallica are preparing to drop a box-set reissue of Load.
In June, Metallica will release a remastered edition of Load in a bunch of different formats. The most expansive of those reissues, the deluxe box set, will run you $274.98. For that, you get 15 CDs and four DVDs, which seems like a lot for a Load reissue. Those discs will include three live LPs, as well as rough mixes, demos, and the previously unreleased original extended version of "The Outlaw Torn," among presumably many other things. The 10-lb. box also includes the remastered album on 180-gram vinyl and CD, as well as all that music on MP3 card, a "Mama Said" picture disc, two tour laminates, a Lollapalooza poster, a Pushead patch, a Rolling Stone cover print, guitar picks, Rorschach test carts, and a 128-page hardback book. It’s got 301 tracks, 245 of them unreleased. They're earning that price tag, anyway. Here's the remastered version of the single "Until It Sleeps," one of those aforementioned bangers.
The various different remastered versions of Load are out 6/13, and you can pre-order them here.
