“Stone Dead Forever” views guilt and greed as destructive forces. The singer, suddenly alone, pledges to carry on without his woman (“Tuesday’s Gone”).
The parental advisory sticker is well-deserved. From its explicit depictions of bestiality and other deviant sex acts (“So What”) to numerous uses of the f-word, this disc is sick. An 11-minute medley of Mercyful Fate songs refers to satanic ritual sacrifice and sex with the dead. “Die Die My Darling” fantasizes about killing the object of one’s affection. Vile lines on “Last Caress/Green Hell” boast of rape and infanticide. That track, “Stone Cold Crazy” and “The Prince” all find the band longing for a fiery afterlife in hell. Dark and deceitful, “Sabbra Cadabra” pushes reincarnation while “Killing Time” promotes murder (“No time for cowardice, kill and survive/Like a killer kid with a switchblade knife”). Extremely twisted.
Here, Metallica covers songs by Danzig, Black Sabbath, Motorhead and others. What one brainless music critic called an “exhilarating joyride” is nothing short of audio porn that condones satanism, witchcraft, necrophilia, rape, bestiality and murder.