Metallica celebrate the 30th anniversary of their none-more-black classic with an army of famous friends.

ROSS HALFIN

Metallica – Remastered Deluxe Box Set BLACKENED RECORDINGS

The Metallica Blacklist – Various Artists BLACKENED RECORDINGS

It was the blockbuster breakthrough album that transformed Metallica into the Mount Rushmore of heavy rock, a monumental career peak that the black-clad post-thrash overlords would arguably never reach again Much like Nirvana’s Nevermind, released just a few weeks later in 1991, Metallica’s self-titled fifth album (8/10) scored huge crossover success and became a major cultural milestone. Both albums went on to sell more than 30 million copies, reshaping the post-grunge and alt.rock landscape of the dawning decade ahead.

Whether as maximalist showmen or hardnosed businessmen, Metallica have little interest in half-measures. Which might explain why this costly, bloated, deluxe 30th-anniversary box set includes 14 CDs, six slabs of vinyl, six DVDs, a 120-page photo-book and tons of souvenir gubbins. Blistering barnacles, there’s more than 24 hours of music to plough through here before we even get to the accompanying all-star tribute album. Has any rock masterpiece in history ever merited this kind of explosively incontinent Wikileaks information dump? Of course not. But does Metallica – aka the Black Album – still sound like a sky-punching, riff-crunching, firebreathing, game-changing landmark in heavy music? Fuck yeah!