Metallica Prepping the Mother ‘Load’ With Reissue of 1996 Album Featuring 245 Unreleased Tracks
The upcoming box set commemorating the band's 1996 will feature three live albums and dozens of demos and alternative takes.
James Hetfield of Metallica performs on stage at Estadio Metropolitano on July 14, 2024 in Madrid, Spain.
Metallica will revisit their 1996 album Load with a sprawling 301-track box set that will feature 245 unreleased tracks as well las demos, rarities and outtakes. The massive set due out on June 13 will be released in a number of formats, including a 2LP 180G vinyl package, as well as CD, cassette and digital, in addition to an expanded 3CD version and what they are calling a “mammoth” deluxe box set.
The “ambitious and comprehensive time capsule of 1995-1997 era Metallica” will feature the entire remastered Load album on 180g double vinyl, the extended version of “The Outlaw Torn,” which was originally edited for release due to the running time limits on CDs at the time, as well as a “Mama Said” picture disc and Loadapalooza ’96, a 140g triple album recorded live during their headlining Lollapalooza show at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on Aug. 4, 1996.
Also included in the 15-CD set are 245 never-before-released tracks, including “riffs, floor takes, demos and rough mixes, B-sides and rarities,” as well as “tons” of live material. The box will also come with four DVDs including behind-the-scenes, in-studio and live footage, as well as on-air and TV appearances and their Polar Beach Party visit to Tuktoyaktuk, Canada.
The massive 10 pound, 1,800-minute box remastered by Reuben Cohen chronicling the group’s second LP to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart will be filled out with special goodies, including 14 Rorschach Test cards, a Pushead patch, an 11×17 Lollapalooza poster, a reproduction of their Rolling Stone cover from the time, a five-pack of guitar/bass picks, lyric sheets, two laminated tour passes and a deluxe 128-page book featuring unreleased photos and stories from the era.
Click here to see all the formats and to pre-order the set; fans who pre-order the deluxe box set now will receive a handful of instant free tracks: “Until It Sleeps (Remastered),” “Until It Sleeps (Herman Melville Mix),” “F.O.B.D. (‘Until It Sleeps’ Rough Chorus Vocal Idea Mix)” and “Until It Sleeps (Live at Slim’s, San Francisco, CA – June 10th, 1996).”
The band released a new lyric video for “Until It Sleeps” in advance of the set’s release, check it out below.
