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Bands reinvent themselves from time to time, with various degrees of success. When Metallica released the Load/Reload albums, they were roundly cursed by many fans for straying from their metal roots. The Garage Inc. covers CD may have helped a bit to bring those fans back, but then we have S&M. S&M is less an album and more an experience with every listen. A concept album by nature, S&M is the live recording of Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra collaborating on 21 Metallica songs. While melding metal and classical music may not entirely original, Metallica can now lay claim to doing it on the grandest scale yet. To hear the delicate opening of "The Ecstasy of Gold" build into the powerful fellow instrumental track "The Call of the Ktulu" before the band rips into "Master of Puppets" is breath taking. The balance between band/symphony is decent, though at times the band drowns out the symphony with a thick riff or two. Not all of the songs mesh well with the symphony though, as the pure metal of "Battery" leaves the symphony in the dust and the version of "Of Wolf and Man" sounds pathetic in a trying to be scary sort of way. But the energy is there, as the crowd completes the "na na na na, na na na" chorus of "The Memory Remains" or sings along to "For Whom The Bell Tolls". The two new songs, "No Leaf Clover" and "-Human" were supposedly written just for this performance, with "No Leaf Clover" taking the prize for better of the two. The only glaring error is the omission of "The Unforgiven" and "The Unforgiven II", which could have been a marvelous medley. While fans of classical music may not exactly flock to S&M, anyone interested at all in the band should definitely give it a spin. Oh, and go ahead and ignore that "Parental Warning" sticker, only two or three profanities are present. Joe Rockstroh 1/5/2000
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