Reload

Reload is the seventh studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica, released on November 18, 1997, via Elektra Records. The album is a follow-up to Load, released the previous year, and Metallica's last studio album to feature the ...And Justice for All-era lineup, with bassist Jason Newsted leaving the band in January 2001, though it was not his last release with the band. Reload debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 436,000 copies in its first week. It was certified 3× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipping three million copies in the United States. Background Reload was recorded at The Plant, a wood-panelled studio in Sausalito, California. The session was produced by Bob Rock, who also produced Metallica's previous two albums. The original idea was to release Load and Reload as a double album. However, with problems recording so many songs at one time, the band decided that half of the songs were to be released and the band would continue to work on the remaining songs and release them the following year. Speaking about the recording sessions in an interview for Guitar World, guitarist Kirk Hammett stated that "We were gonna do them both as a double album, but we didn't want to spend that long in the studio. Also, if we did a double album, it would have been a lot more material for people to digest, and some of it might have gotten lost in the shuffle." It was the final Metallica studio album to feature the ...And Justice for All-era lineup with bassist Jason Newsted leaving the band in January 2001, though it was not his last release with the band. Reload marks the first album to feature a guest singer (Marianne Faithfull in "The Memory Remains").