Blackened

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"Blackened"

Cover of ...And Justice for All
Song by Metallica
from the album ..And Justice for All
Released	September 6, 1988
Recorded	January-May, 1988
Genre	Thrash metal
Length	6:42
Label	Elektra Records
Producer(s)	Metallica, Flemming Rasmussen
..And Justice for All track listing
"Blackened" "...And Justice for All" "Eye of the Beholder" "One" "The Shortest Straw" "Harvester of Sorrow" "The Frayed Ends of Sanity" "To Live is to Die" "Dyers Eve"

"Blackened" is the first track on Metallica's 1988 album ...And Justice for All. It was written by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich and Jason Newsted, and was the first Metallica song co-written by Newsted.

In common with the opening tracks of the previous two albums, Ride the Lightning (1984) and Master of Puppets (1986), "Blackened" opens quietly before switching to a thrash metal style (182 bpm). In this case, the intro contains several electric guitars rather than classical guitars. However, it continues the general "tonal" nature of the previous introductions. An interesting note is that the intro was recorded with several harmonized guitars layered on a tape which afterwards was flipped. The intro heard on the ...And Justice for All album is actually the recorded intro played backwards.

As a whole, Blackened is second only to "Dyers Eve" as the fastest song on the album. However, as with many Metallica songs, "Blackened" contains a slower section during the middle with many different riffs and solos. Kirk Hammett's solo that begins at five minutes into the song is one of Metallica fans' favourites, featuring an exceptionally fast picking part in addition to a very fast tapping part. It is played over a very fast and thrashy rhythm backup, and is a very intense part of the song.

The lyrics of the song refer to the destruction of Earth and the human race and a new Ice Age. The lyrics imply the cause to be nuclear warfare, although this is not explicitly stated. The theme is similar to that of Ride the Lightning's opening track, "Fight Fire with Fire" (which also begins with a slow, classical introduction). During the subsequent 1988-1989 Damaged Justice Tour, "Blackened" was almost always the opening song. After more than a decade of dormancy, a truncated version of "Blackened" (with a shortened solo section) was resurrected by Metallica for most of the shows on the 1999-2000 M2K Tour and the 2003-2004 Madly In Anger With The World Tour.

The song was covered by Between the Buried and Me on their album The Anatomy Of.