This was on one of the Garage Days, right? Their Diamond Head covers are generally great (Am I Evil etc). Looking it up, it’s also hilarious that finally Diamond Head covered a Metallica song a few years ago.
Garage, Inc, yeah. This and Breadfan were recorded during the preparation for recording AJFA and the original mixing was kind of terrible, you can hear a constant clipping of the cymbals throughout. This convinced LU and JH to fire their producer and go with someone else (Fleming Rasmussen?) for the album.
The AJFA remaster released a few years ago changed that up considerably. My intro to Metallica was AJFA and was astonished to learn this even existed when a friend of mine showed me his Japanese import AJFA in the mid 90s. I’m convinced this was Metallica’s peak performance and solidified then as the 80s best cover band.
Interesting tidbit: they pa(y)id royalties to Diamond Head (and other bands) for the songs they cover. For as much shit as they got for the napster thing, they did those bands a huge solid by getting them paid, finding their lost recordings and pretty much putting them on the map for others to hear and learn about. Those bands inspired thrash metal in general and Metallica were showing their gratitude.
