Load and ReLoad saw Metallica continuing the more simplified hard rock sound they adopted on the self-titled album, while incorporating blues, southern and alternative rock influences. Naturally, this change led to accusations of They Changed It, Now It Sucks! from long-time fans, with accusations of Sell-Out also running rampant due to the band's almost U2-like haircuts and alt-rock influence. Nevertheless, both albums were massive commercial successes, hitting #1 on the Billboard 200 and selling in excess of 5 million copies each.
On June 13, 2025, Load was the sixth studio album to receive its reissue in a series of deluxe box sets for every studio album by Metallica, which comes in two forms: a three-CD "expanded edition", and the full 25-disc box set. The box set as a whole features a remastered edition of the album on both LP vinyl and CD formats, a re-release of the "Mama Said" single on 7-inch vinyl, alternate edits for "Mama Said" and "The Outlaw Torn" among other songs, DVD releases of the music videos for "Until It Sleeps", "King Nothing", "Mama Said" and "Hero of the Day" (this video including both its two regular versions and two alternate takes), many demo and live concert recordings on CD, LP and DVD discs, numerous recordings of interviews and TV appearances on both audio and video formats, and DVD documentaries detailing the album's production, plus a variety of Feelies.
On June 26, 2026, ReLoad received its own deluxe box set reissue as the seventh album in the series; the album's full box set has 24 physical discs. Its contents are similar to those of the Load box set, with the re-released single being the one for "The Memory Remains", and the music videos ported to DVD being those of "Fuel", "The Memory Remains" and "The Unforgiven II".
Preceded by Metallica. Followed by St. Anger.
Load tracklist:
- "Ain't My Bitch" (5:04)
- "2 X 4" (5:28)
- "The House That Jack Built" (6:39)
- "Until It Sleeps" (4:28)
- "King Nothing" (5:30)
- "Hero of the Day" (4:22)
- "Bleeding Me" (8:14)
- "Cure" (4:54)
- "Poor Twisted Me" (4:00)
- "Wasting My Hate" (3:57)
- "Mama Said" (5:22)
- "Thorn Within" (5:52)
- "Ronnie" (5:17)
- "The Outlaw Torn" (9:49)*
ReLoad tracklist:
- "Fuel" (4:30)
- "The Memory Remains" (4:39)
- "Devil's Dance" (5:19)
- "The Unforgiven II" (6:36)
- "Better Than You" (5:22)
- "Slither" (5:13)
- "Carpe Diem Baby" (6:12)
- "Bad Seed" (4:05)
- "Where the Wild Things Are" (6:23)
- "Prince Charming" (6:05)
- "Low Man's Lyric" (7:36)
- "Attitude" (5:17)
- "Fixxxer" (8:15)
Personnel:
- James Hetfield - rhythm guitar, lead vocals
- Kirk Hammett - lead guitar
- Jason Newsted - bass
- Lars Ulrich - drums
"Oh, poor troping me...":
- Be Careful What You Wish For: From the bridge of "King Nothing":Careful what you wish
Careful what you say
Careful what you wish, you may regret it
Careful what you wish, you just might get it - Call-Back:
- "King Nothing" ends with a lyrical call-back to "Enter Sandman".
- "The Unforgiven II" features several musical call-backs to "The Unforgiven", as well as a homage to the Iron Maiden song "Children of the Damned" in its acoustic bits.
- Cluster F-Bomb: "Ain't My Bitch" doesn't technically have any instance of "fuck" in it, but liberally uses a ton of other swear words.
- Driven to Madness: "Ronnie" is about a lonely and depressed kid who eventually snaps and shoots up his neighborhood.
Word of God says that this is based on an actual shooting that happened in Washington state during the early-mid 90's. - Drowning My Sorrows: "The House That Jack Built" is about resorting to alcoholism to deal with one's own grief and personal problems, with the condition of drunkenness being compared to a Happy Place. The song was inspired by James' own struggles with alcoholism at the time, which eventually prompted him to go through rehab and become sober by the time recording of St. Anger began.
- Epic Rocking: Several songs, including "The Outlaw Torn", "Fixxxer", "Bleeding Me" and "The House That Jack Built."
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: "Mama Said", although this song is also pretty open about the frustrations James had with his mother.
- Fading into the Next Song: "Until It Sleeps" fades into "King Nothing". Word of God says that this was actually a mistake in Load's mixing.
- Fake-Out Fade-Out: "Better Than You" has a fake ending, although it doesn't technically "fade out."
- A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted: The subject of "King Nothing" has this happen and is mocked for it throughout the whole song.
- Genre Roulette: Stylistically, these albums are all over the place! Hard Rock, Alternative Rock, Grunge, Stoner Rock, Heavy Metal, Punk, Southern Blues, Country, Progressive Rock, and even Folk Music influences are present.
- God of Evil: "Fixxxer" is about a sadistic deity who puts his subjects through torture and eternal suffering for his own amusement.
- Grief Song: Quite a few, actually. "Until It Sleeps", "Cure", and "Mama Said" are all about James's deceased parents.
- Happy Place: "The House That Jack Built" is about sheltering yourself from the dangers of the outside world through alcohol dependence. A topic James is all too familiar with, unfortunately.
- Karmic Poverty: "King Nothing" is about a man single-mindedly focused on achieving his endless ambitions for wealth and social status, up to and including promoting himself as a cult figure who always needs blindly loyal followers. He eventually succeeds in his goal, only for it to turn out to be a Pyrrhic Victory, as he ended up pushing everyone else away from him due to his insane self-centeredness, and he loses all the fortune he had built not long after.
- Lighter and Softer: Compared even to the self-titled, these albums are pretty light by Metallica standards (though still heavy by modern rock standards). Although lyrically, they actually contain some of Metallica's darkest and most serious material.
- Longest Song Goes Last: Applies to the respective closing tracks of both albums.
- Load closes with "The Outlaw Torn", which runs for nearly ten minutes even after shortening it to prevent the CD from skipping; the original full version available on one of the versions of the "The Memory Remains" single and the album's deluxe box set (subtitled, on each respective release, with "Unencumbered by Manufacturing Restrictions Version" and "No More Manufacturing Limits!"), plus the "Outlaw of Torn Vocal Tag Alternate Mix" from the deluxe box set that also features omitted vocals in the outro, are both a minute longer.
- ReLoad closes with "Fixxxer", which runs for just over eight minutes.
- New Sound Album: Structurally, Load and ReLoad are very similar to the self-titled album, but they have a more blues-centric guitar sound and even gruffer vocals from James, and their style is a Genre Roulette incorporating many rock subgenres outside of metal, plus some dashes of blues and country. Not to mention the guitars are tuned down half a step for the entirety of the two albums (except "Devil's Dance" and "Bad Seed" which are tuned to D Standard and C# Standard respectively and both of which are on Reload).
- Precision F-Strike: "Fuel" has a particularly effective one.
- Rock Me, Asmodeus!: "Devil's Dance" is a subversion in that, while it appears at surface level to be about Satan, it's actually about somebody soliciting sex.
- Sequel Song:
- "The Unforgiven II" is one to "The Unforgiven" from the self-titled.
- "Cure" is, lyrically at least, a sort of sequel to "The God That Failed", as it's also about James's parents' battles with cancer and how their rigid Christian Science beliefs have been holding them back from successful treatment.
- Spoken Word in Music: The bridge in "Ronnie".
- Stealth Pun: The title of Load takes on a different meaning if you're aware of how its cover art was created: it's cow blood mixed with the artist's own semen, or in other words, the artist's load.
- Surprisingly Gentle Song: "Mama Said" and "Low Man's Lyric". About half of "Hero of the Day" is this as well.
- Title Track: An odd aversion. The demo for "King Nothing" was titled "Load". However, the final albums have no title tracks in them.
- Voodoo Doll: "Fixxxer" is told from the perspective of a voodoo doll used by the song's God of Evil.
- White-Dwarf Starlet: "The Memory Remains", with Marianne Faithfull providing guest vocals.
- Yarling: James does this in several songs, such as "Ronnie".