Ahem. Once upon a time there was a concert in San Francisco. Metallica were deciding what they could do next to develop their music. They had already gone from mixing Punk with metal to make thrash, to abandoning thrash for melodic heaviness, to covering old-style metal. Now what? So they decided to invite Michael Kamen and the entire San Francisco symphony orchestra to play with them, covering a multitude of their best songs, and two written specially for orchestration. They recorded an album live in that concert. This is that album.

Metal + Violins +Violas +Violoncellos + Basses +Flutes + Oboes + Clarinets + Bassoons + Horns + Trumpets + Trombones + A Tuba + A Harp + Timpani + More Percussion than Lars Ulrich already provides? “It’ll never work” I hear you cry! And no, it shouldn’t work. But it does. In fact, not only does it work, it brings metal to a whole new level. The whole album flows, without feeling Samey in any way. The orchestration by Michael Kamen is masterful, with the orchestra adding new voices and depth to the songs. Not all of them are better that the originals, but you may be pleasantly surprised. There is enough difference in the S&M versions of the songs that they can be listened to on the same playlist and still be enjoyable. Also, with 20 tracks over 2 CD’s, it’s great value for the price of a normal (albeit recent) album.

If you’re a fan of Metallica, or just general melodic metal, this is for you. On the down side, it’s not too moshy, so for you Hardcore only metalers (I sees ya) I’d recommend Kill ‘Em All instead. You know it makes sense.