When Giants Walked the Earth

July 18, 2011
Drama attends few mainstream heavy-metal bands more than Metallica. Veteran rock writer Wall (When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin) opens this massive, unauthorized tome with the pre-dawn bus crash on a curvy road in Sweden that killed original bassist Cliff Burton in 1986, an event that forever altered the musical and emotional course of the band. Focusing primarily on Metallica's founders, singer and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, Wall chronicles the band's many struggles on their way to becoming one of metal's most-successful acts. The group has survived divorce, drugs, legal battles, image reinvention, fan alienation, and the filming of an award-winning documentary chronicling Metallica's turn-of-the-century turmoil. Though the band was not interviewed specifically for this book, Wall draws on over 25 years of personal interactions with the group, numerous published interviews, and an intimate knowledge of their catalog to offer a no-holds-barred take on the controversial band. A mélange of musical criticism, first-hand narrative, and retrospective analysis of the band's impact on metal and beyond, Wall's latest is a rich resource for metal-heads and pop-culture aficionados alike. 32-page color photo insert.