Metallica Are Releasing A Remastered 'Load' Box Set

Time to dust off your soul patches, cake on the guyliner and rewatch Some Kind of Monster — Metallica are bringing Load back from the crypt. The band’s famously divisive 1996 album is getting the deluxe reissue treatment, arriving next month on June 13th, and it’s loaded (sorry, had to) with enough rarities, demos, and live cuts to make even Lars blush. 245 of them to be exact (!!!!)

Billed as the definitive re-release, the new Load has been lovingly remastered by Reuben Cohen at Lurssen Mastering, with oversight from Greg Fidelman — AKA Metallica’s current sonic wizard and studio right-hand man.

Metallica – ‘Until It Sleeps’ (Remastered)

For casual fans and 7-string truthers alike, there are multiple editions to choose from. Ahem:

A slick 2-LP vinyl with the original tracklist, remastered to crispy perfection.
A 3-CD deluxe edition, featuring the OG album, a disc of unreleased demos and rough mixes, and a third disc of mid-’90s live material — think sweat, growls, and questionable facial hair
And for the truly devoted (or deranged), a colossal box set with 15 CDs, six LPs, and four DVDs — a sonic time machine back to Metallica’s most hair-gelled era.

The AUD $384 box behemoth boasts a whopping 245 unreleased tracks (full list here), plus B-sides, riff tapes, live cuts, and gloriously weird extras like:

14 Rorschach Test cards (spoiler: they all look like James Hetfield yelling “YEAHHH!”)
A Pushead patch
Replica tour passes
Picks, lyric sheets, a Rolling Stone cover
A 128-page book of behind-the-scenes lore from the Load/Reload days
And yes, the band’s infamous Arctic “Polar Beach Party” trip to Tuktoyaktuk is on the DVDs — flannels, frostbite, and all.

Back in the day, Load raised eyebrows with its alt-rock detour and artsy new aesthetic (RIP headbanging mullets, hello eyeliner and Cuban cigars). But time — and maybe a few thousand riffs — have been kind. Fans and even the band themselves have reappraised the era. Kirk Hammett recently teased that Metallica might even revisit that sonic lane on future albums.

In the meantime, Load standouts like ‘Until It Sleeps’ and ‘King Nothing’ are still live staples on Metallica’s M72 world tour, which is heading down under this November.

The Load reissue drops June 13th — pre-orders are available to cop now via Metallica’s website. Meanwhile, you can suss the freshly remastered version of ‘Until It Sleeps’ right now, up above.

Metallica Are Releasing A Remastered ‘Load’ Box Set With 245 (!!!) Unheard Tracks

Metallica – ‘Until It Sleeps’ (Remastered)

Further Reading