Initially, with the band to play at the 1987 Monsters of Rock festival, the plan was to record some new material release as a lead in to that event. While the band came up with some ideas during this period, James Hetfield then broke his arm while skateboarding (as you do) and was unable to play for several weeks. So instead, the band began to jam some of their favourite songs, and the plan changed to record some of those songs for the new release instead of writing new material.
A couple of years earlier, the band had released “Creeping Death” as a single, and the B-side had been dubbed as “Garage Days Revisited”, as they had covered two of their favourite songs to complement the single, those being Diamond Head’s “Am I Evil?” and Blitzkrieg’s “Blitzkrieg”. The name of course referred to the days of when the band, as all bands do, jammed in the garage to their favourite songs. When it came to naming this EP, they used that as the template, and thus it was called “Garage Days Re-revisited" for posterity. They also put in at the start of the title “The $5.98 EP”, in order to stop retail outlets from overcharging for the EP. This was changed in several areas and probably not adhered to anywhere, but when the EP is mentioned it is generally just as “Garage Days”, and everyone knows exactly what you are talking about.
There are five tracks on the album, which collates to six songs. The artists comprise an interesting range of both age and genre, and the songs differ in the same way. On the original two songs from the “Creeping Death” single, Metallica’s versions of the songs are completely faithful to the originals, but give them a heavier sound and a slight rise in tempo. Here on “Garage Days”, they don’t mess too much with the originals but they do give them a distinct Metallica feel instead.
The opening track “Helpless” is another Diamond Head song, from their “Lightning for the Nations” album. To say that this band and this album was an inspiration to the band would be under selling it, as they eventually covered just about every song from this album in some way shape or form. The original is a beauty, but Metallica’s version does give it an even more perfect metal feel, an updated thrash sound that, even just seven years after the original song was released, improves it.
This is followed by “The Small Hours” by Holocaust. This song didn’t have a release as a studio version by Holocaust until some years after Metallica released this EP. The version that Metallica knew was on Holocaust’s live album “Live (Hot Curry & Wine)”. The big improver on the original version here is Hetfield’s vocals, which give greater definition to the song than Gary Lettice did on the original.
“The Wait” is my favourite song in this collection. The original version is by Killing Joke from their eponymous debut album, and that version is also a ripper, combining both hard core and post-punk to make an amazing song. But then Metallica get a hold of it, and produce something amazing. The opening riff and sequence of the Metallica version for me is one of the heaviest things ever performed. For me it is the equal of some of the things Tony Iommi wrote, such as “Children of the Grave” and “Symptom of the Universe”. I love it, it is awesome.
The song that Metallica turned into a ripper is definitely Budgie’s “Crash Course in Brain Surgery”. While the original is a good song, coming from Budgie’s fourth studio album “In for the Kill!”, Metallica tear it to shreds and really give it a few more megatons of power.
The final track is actually two songs by Misfits, that didn’t appear on the same album. Titled “Last Caress/Green Hell”, it puts together “Last Caress” from the “Beware” EP in 1980, with “Green Hell” which came from “Earth AD/Wolfs Blood” album from 1983. Metallica’s version of these two songs is at a much faster tempo, lifting the songs to thrash songs rather than the Misfits original earthier post-punk versions. It also fades out with a deliberately out-of-tune rendition of the opening riff of Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills”, to close out the EP.
This was an amazing release when it came out. It was 1987, I was in my final year of high school, I had discovered heavy metal and so many new brilliant bands, and then here was Metallica releasing an album of cover songs... but they were all so brilliantly Metallica! It was fast, furious, heavy and fantastically awesome. So much so that, even those from outside of the metal circle I resided in at the time, those who had a slight interest in heavy metal but without wanting to really admit it, hailed this as the best album of the year, and every party or event we had for the rest of 1987 had this album blaring out of the stereo at every single one of them. Air guitar, headbanging, singing the words at the top of our voices. This album united one and all. And all conveniently fitting on one side of a C60 cassette... which meant I could record it again on the other side, and just have it going around and around in the cassette player in the car.
Beyond that, it also introduced me to these other bands that, if not for this, I may never have experienced, or at least not as soon as I did. It offered me Diamond Head’s amazing “Lightning to the Nations” album, one that I share Metallica’s love for. I was able to track down Holocaust’s “The Nightcomers” album and the “Live (Hot Curry and Wine)” albums and enjoy them as well. I found Killing Joke and some great songs and some average songs. And I found Misfits, whose early albums are still taken off my shelves often to listen to, which of course then led to Samhain and Danzig and the joy of their music as well. So it was truly an amazing EP, at the absolute right time of my life, in which to take as much from it as it could offer me.
We also got our first listen to Jason Newsted in Metallica, and found that he was indeed a perfect fit to replace Cliif. His bass runs and riffs especially in “Crash Course” and “The Wait” whetted our appetite for what the next Metallica album would bring. Little were we to know that we wouldn't actually hear his instrument on that album when it WAS released!
As I said, Metallica has made a side-career in covered tracks from great artists of the past ever since this was released, on B-sides of singles, in the compilation covers album “Garage Inc” and on tribute albums through the decades. But this remains a magic moment in time, one that always sends me crashing back through the years to 1987 every time I put it on, and remembering those great times late at night crowded around the stereo at someone’s house, playing air guitar to that opening riff of The Wait.
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