Metallica Monday: The Unforgiven III
Piano intro for part 3, from Death Magnetic. A return to form for many a fan, the third iteration of Unforgiven grounds Metallica back to their back catalogue literally. With a fairly similar chord progression, and topics for lyrics you might say this is a retread or rehash but there is plenty more going on here. Strings accompanying, a strong vocal mix and performance from James. A breakdown, repeating refrain about forgiveness or not and as is now familiar: a big finish for an Unforgiven track.
I've enjoyed this little journey and hope you are having a good one this Monday. I know this track has been good for me this week. As always, who's got some memories about this track to share? I don't think performed a huge amount at all, and easily missed on Death Magnetic itself imo. But has stood the test of time, from 2008!
No sign of IV yet
Love this song, maybe even more than unforgiven 2. Makes me want to play a nautical ttrpg. Intoxicating.
Yeah I prefer it to 2 as well, the strings and piano adding to it a fair bit and reflecting what learned from S&M back in '99
Didn't think Unforgiven 3 was that well liked. I don't hate it, but I hated the idea of it when it was new. I listened to it again recently (ish... like late last year?) and my takeaway was just "why does this exist" and "this is just a cash grab." It didn't really grab me like the other two did.
Now granted, I felt the same way about Unforgiven 2 when ReLoad came out. Load was mostly a solid album, and ReLoad felt like it was the stuff that wasn't good enough to make it to the main album (yes, I'm aware it was originally planned as a double album). I think after Black, Metallica realised they weren't going to go much further up and that they had gone further up than a humble thrash metal band really needed to, so they... kinda went to the side, looking for a niche without just going straight back to thrash. And we saw them experiment with rock, alternative, even country/western (e.g. with Mama Said), but for the most part it was good stuff. And then Unforgiven 2. It was a good song in its own right, but I didn't really feel the connection with the first one. And to be fair, it was as much a dig at Black as King Nothing was, signing off with "we're off to never never land", and most considered that a good song, from what I remember.
That said, I generally like Death Magnetic, and especially The Day That Never Comes. That song is as good as anything on Load and as good as the bottom half of Black, maybe as good as anything on Black.