Garage Days Re-Revisited Remastered

I’m going to start of by saying I think this is the peak of Metallica's recorded performances. Obviously it does not showcase their pure writing talents, but their ability to arrange songs to improve their pace and sound is on display here in addition to the overall themes of a killer guitar tone, the best sounding bass tone in their entire catalogue, some truly quality drumm patterns and fills and Kirk’s best written solos. There’s a certain raw quality that says “not overproduced” but obviously a super tight performance, not sloppy at all. Lets dig into each track.Helpless-A fine drum intro without Lars later years snare tone. The guitar tone here is exquisite. Kind of a typical old school tallica arrangement with power chords and some muted open strings. But some speed metal riffage during the chorus “helpless”. Something the Metallica of today is lacking. The Bass fill with 4:15 left is a nice showcase of Newsted and his bassline throughout the entire song is pretty slick, and we can actually hear it. Listen to it behind the twin guitar part that follows. With some more speed metal riff following that, it harkens back to a metallica of the KEA era. The song wraps up right after a Hammett solo that gives us a glimpse of a guitar player that is not resting on his laurels, but is out to impress guitar players. Unfortunately we would only ever get one more album with that Kirk playing on it.The Small Hours -We often think of Slayer as the thrash band that would give us the creepy, horror movie soundtrack intros, but here the Bay Area boys give us an intro right out of a cult horror classic. Lars’ drumming on this track is one of my favorites.The main track sounds slower than the original, but it adds an ominous overtone to the entire track. Again the speed with the great guitar tone delivers a fantastic groove that one can’t help but slowly headbang too. There’s some great basswork going on behind the guitar in the verses. Why this wasn’t the case for the rest of Metallica recording history is beyond me. With 2:35 left in the track, we hear some old school galloping speed riffs and then another one of those guitar solos that’s on fire. And not a trace of future bluesy bendy notes that Kirk is now known for.The Wait -This is a song I always thought Prong should cover, but Metallica diverts further from the original than I think Tommy and Co. would have. The opening vocals sound like something that Dave Mustaine would have done on So Far.. So Good... So What! Not typical for Hetfield at all, and I like it. Like the original by Killing Joke, there is some popping bass lines going on throughout the song. Pay attention when there is 2:15 left in the track Metallica had found a real jem with Newstead, it’s a shame that they buried him so much and so often during his tenure. James’ vocals also impress during the chorus “The Waaaaaaait” is done with precision that at that time I didn’t think he had. With 1:15 left we get another Kirk solo, but it’s part ripping and part bendy, feely with way too much wah pedal.Probably my least favorite solo on the EPCrash Course in Brain Surgery -Bass intro of coolness. And another track that they seemingly chose to showcase their new bassist. Pay attention to 0:37 left , that’s the perfect bass tone on a perfect bass lick. Another track that features a more standard old school power chord/palm muted open string section. But that’s a vast improvement over the original. With 1:05 left Kirk launches into a short solo that perfectly shows why he was in all guitar magazines as the hot shot guitar player from the thrash genre. Easily my favorite solo on the album and in the running for my favorite Kirk solo ever.Last Caress/ Green Hell -As a dude that like the Danzig era Misfits, the highlight of this cover was actually hearing the song. The old Misfits recordings suffer terribly from sound quality of a shoebox tape recorder...in a fishbowl….in a different room….of a different house...across the street from the band.On top of that, the misfits obviously couldn’t afford good amps, so their guitar tone from the start was lackluster at best. I always figured they wrapped their guitar strings loosely with aluminum foil to get their “distortion” because that’s how I replicated it when I was a kid. So here we have Metallica doing a pretty faithful rendition of the original(s) with a killer guitar tone and quite clear recordings, even if it was done in a garage.All in all, I’d rather listen to this EP than any of Metallica’s LPs. Even though I really like a lot of the writing that James has done, unfortunately the best written songs also happen to be the worst recorded songs. Had AJFA been recorded to sound like Garage Days, people would barely remember MOP. I don’t understand why they chose to sabotage themselves with what would have been their obvious masterpiece had they just stuck a good sounding recording that they had managed to achieve in 6 days in a garage.