Overload (album)

Overload is a remastering of American heavy metal band Metallica's studio albums Load and ReLoad, which were well-known for differentiating vastly from Metallica's famous 80s' era and their self-titled album Metallica. These two albums were intended to be a pair and are hard rock oriented albums, boasting more personal lyrics and experimental compositions when compared to their older material. While initially receiving somewhat poor reviews for the different approaches, the albums were praised for their great lyrical content and their grooves and sonic curveballs.

"Overload" is a remastering of those two albums, with clean (yet groovy) production and added instrumental lines utilized in the S&M versions. Overload was released on June 4, 2021, exactly 25 years of the initial release of "Load". To reference the original idea of the Load albums being a single double album, Overload was released as two discs. While the original two albums combined held 27 songs, there are only fourteen songs used in this remastering of this album, with eight from "Load" and six from "ReLoad". The remaining songs were uploaded along with the rest of the album to Metallica's official YouTube channel.

The fourteen seconds kept in this album, together, form a single story that is told from the perspective of a once-famous superstar that had ultimately fallen due to complications of family-related PTSD and alcoholic abuse. Missing their mother dearly and losing mental control, they continue falling apart by taking uncomfortably large substances alcohol under the illusion that the devil commanded it, quitting their life to commit to the lethal hobby.

After being verbally abused for their drunken approaches to life, they take enough to be involved in a major car crash and are sent to the hospital, having wild dreams about their past and filling their mind with the things they once loved, including their mother. The Outlaw Torn, the album's closer, is a collection of the last thoughts they had prior to death, describing how empty their life is without a second one to be there for them.

Track listing
Songs in bold were released as singles. Note that songs that were singles prior in the original two albums may not be singles here, and vice versa.

Disc 1

 * 1) "The Memory Remains" (5:09)
 * 2) "Until It Sleeps" (4:42)
 * 3) "King Nothing" (5:16)
 * 4) "Devil's Dance" (5:37)
 * 5) "The House Jack Built" (6:32)
 * 6) "Bad Seed" (4:15)
 * 7) "Poor Twisted Me" (4:28)
 * 8) "Bleeding Me" (8:21)

Disc 2

 * 1) "Fuel" (4:31)
 * 2) "Hero of the Day" (4:40)
 * 3) "Where the Wild Things Are" (6:58)
 * 4) "Fixxxer" (8:09)
 * 5) "Mama Said" (5:25)
 * 6) "The Outlaw Torn" (10:45)

Personnel
Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.


 * James Hetfield -- Rhythm guitar, vocals
 * Kirk Hammett -- Lead guitar
 * Robert Trujillo -- Bass play
 * Jason Newsted -- Original bass notes
 * Lars Ulrich -- Drums

Additional musicians

 * Marianne Faithfull – additional vocals on "The Memory Remains"
 * Jim McGillveray – percussion

Production

 * Greg Fidelman, James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich – producers
 * Mike Fraser, Randy Staub – mixing
 * George Marino – mastering
 * Andres Serrano – artwork