Symphony & Metallica is a strange musical experiment: Metallica meets the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
After writing the orchestration for Nothing Else Matters, conductor Michael Kamen invited The Four Horsemen to play live with an orchestra. And seven years later here's the result: some people loves it, some other hates it. I'm neutral.
First of all, I don's like the orchestra score because it doesn's fit in. Classical instruments frequently play parts totally different from what the band play: instead of accompanying and strengthening the original melodies, it seems just like the classical musicians play a different song. It is really a pity, because I can imagine the perfect score in my head!
I respect Michael Kamen, because he has worked with many rock artists such as Pink Floyd and Bryan Adams, but this time he has really disappointed me.
Production is good: every instrument has a bright, clean sound. But, in my opinion, the orchestra volume level is too loud and some guitar parts are buried. James? voice is not energic and some old songs feel the effects of it.
There is a pair of new songs, No Leaf Clover and ?Human: nice tunes, but nothing special.
The biggest error is in the tracklist! How could they plan to play Fuel, Battery, The Memory Remains, Wherever I May Roam leaving out The Unforgiven?! Heavy tunes can be revisited with an orchestra: it might be funny! But how could you leave out Fade To Black when you know you're going to play with dozen of violinists?! Aaaarrrrggh !!!
In my opinion, this could have been a great experiment with the following tracklist:
The Ecstasy Of Gold, Fade To Black, My Friend Of Misery (instrumental demo version), The Unforgiven, The Outlaw Torn, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Orion, Nothing Else Matters, Thorn Within, Devil's Dance, Enter Sandman, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Master Of Puppets (slow instrumental part), The Unforgiven II, Fixxxer, One, To Live Is To Die, Low Man's Lyric, Hero Of The Day, Blackened, Seek & Destroy.
I like that Seek & Destroy down there! It's a pity that no orchestra will ever play Kill ?Em All (maybe one day Apocalyptica will!).
Finally, if you're interested in buying S & M, I do not suggest you to buy the double live album. You?d better buy the DVD video, it's fantastic: 4 personalized cameras on 4 songs, 5.1 Dolby Surround, a 40 minutes documentary, bonus footage (see Jason destroying a violin!) and separate audio tracks for band and orchestra (this means that you can even select ?band only? or ?orchestra only?!): a great live concert.
Album Title:S&M (Live) Artist | Group:Metallica Label:SME Release date:1999 Genre:Heavy Metal Number of track(s):21 File format:mp3 Total duration:02h:13m:19s:858ms Total size:313.1988 MB
The Ecstasy Of Gold (Live With The SFSO) The Call Of Ktulu (Live With The SFSO) Master Of Puppets (Live With The SFSO) Of Wolf And Man (Live With The SFSO) The Thing That Should Not Be (Live With The SFSO) Fuel (Live With The SFSO) The Memory Remains (Live With The SFSO) No Leaf Clover (Live With The SFSO) Hero Of The Day (Live With The SFSO) Devil's Dance (Live With The SFSO) Bleeding Me (Live With The SFSO) Nothing Else Matters (Live With The SFSO) Until It Sleeps (Live With The SFSO) For Whom The Bell Tolls (Live With The SFSO) Human (Live With The SFSO) Wherever I May Roam (Live With The SFSO) The Outlaw Torn (Live With The SFSO) Sad But True (Live With The SFSO) One (Live With The SFSO) Enter Sandman (Live With The SFSO) Battery (Live With The SFSO)
Track Info
File name:1-01 The Ecstasy Of Gold (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:2mn 30s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:6.14 MiB Track number:1
File name:1-02 The Call Of Ktulu (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:9mn 34s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:22.3 MiB Track number:2
File name:1-03 Master Of Puppets (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:8mn 55s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:20.8 MiB Track number:3
File name:1-04 Of Wolf And Man (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:4mn 19s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:10.3 MiB Track number:4
File name:1-05 The Thing That Should Not Be (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:7mn 27s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:17.4 MiB Track number:5
File name:1-06 Fuel (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:4mn 36s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:10.9 MiB Track number:6
File name:1-07 The Memory Remains (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:4mn 42s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:11.2 MiB Track number:7
File name:1-08 No Leaf Clover (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:5mn 43s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:13.5 MiB Track number:8
File name:1-09 Hero Of The Day (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:4mn 44s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:11.3 MiB Track number:9
File name:1-10 Devil's Dance (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:5mn 26s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:12.8 MiB Track number:10
File name:1-11 Bleeding Me (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:9mn 2s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:21.1 MiB Track number:11
File name:2-01 Nothing Else Matters (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:6mn 47s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:15.9 MiB Track number:1
File name:2-02 Until It Sleeps (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:4mn 30s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:10.7 MiB Track number:2
File name:2-03 For Whom The Bell Tolls (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:4mn 52s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:11.5 MiB Track number:3
File name:2-04 Human (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:4mn 20s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:10.3 MiB Track number:4
File name:2-05 Wherever I May Roam (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:7mn 1s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:16.5 MiB Track number:5
File name:2-06 The Outlaw Torn (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:9mn 59s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:23.2 MiB Track number:6
File name:2-07 Sad But True (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:5mn 46s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:13.6 MiB Track number:7
File name:2-08 One (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:7mn 53s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:18.4 MiB Track number:8
File name:2-09 Enter Sandman (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:7mn 39s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:17.9 MiB Track number:9
File name:2-10 Battery (Live With The SFSO).mp3 Duration:7mn 25s Bit rate:320 Kbps Bit rate mode:CBR File size:17.4 MiB Track number:10