Vinyl Review: Metallica - Helping Hands... Live & Acoustic at The Masonic

They are hailed as thrash metal icons by many, heavy metal heroes by others, but today they can add acoustic masters to the list.  A quarter of a century after the dawn of the MTV Unplugged craze, Metallica has joined the fray... well sort of.  While it isn't MTV Unplugged, Metallica's latest release is unplugged, all acoustic concert put on to raise money for All Within My Hands Foundation which was set up by the band in February of 2017 to help communities in need.

The benefit show took place on November 3rd at the Masonic in San Francisco, California in conjunction with an auction, and raised 1.3 million dollars for Feeding America and the American Association of Community Colleges.  It was announced the show would be released as a double LP in February 2019 with the money received from sales of the album (also available digitally and via streaming services) going directly to the foundation.  The album was sold via Metallica's website and was made available to independent record stores on vinyl.

The vinyl is a nice blue marble

The album comes in a nice gatefold cover featuring some very cool cover art by Jimbo Phillips.  Inside you will find photos of from the performance November 3rd.  The vinyl records are a very nice blue marble and weigh 140 grams (standard vinyl weight is 120 grams). Included inside the sleeve holders is a download card as well, which is nice for those that want to listen to the album in their cars or on the go.  I was a little bummed that there was no flat insert for the album because I think it could have added to the overall package.  Even something to talk about the foundation would have been nice to include.

So what about the music? I remember seeing a lot of comments online when the album was announced back in November about how Metallica shouldn't be doing acoustic albums, but I personally was very excited about it.  I am a big fan of acoustic versions of songs that normally wouldn't be heard in that way.  Unplugged stuff always intrigued me.  Who wouldn't want to hear AC/DC play Hells Bells acoustically just once? I know I would.  When I got home from the store the first thing I did was open the album up and pop on the first disc.  The first song was "Disposable Heroes" from Master of Puppets, and boy was that a treat.  You knew right off the top that Metallica put some thought into the songs they would be doing.  Everyone is expecting "Unforgiven" and "Nothing Else Matters" because they make sense, but "Disposable Heroes" acoustically? Heck yeah! I thought it set the stage well for the entire album.

Helping Hands rocking my office

The album features several covers as well.  What I liked about that is that other than Bob Seger's "Turn the Page", Metallica brought out some covers I haven't heard them do before.  Deep Purple's "When a Blind Man Cries", Blue Oyster Cult's "Veteran of the Psychic Wars", and my personal favorite, Nazareth's "Please Don't Judas Me".  I found myself really enjoying the covers that they did on the album, and I feel it fit the mold set by many other bands who have previously done the "unplugged" thing.

The other thing I really like about the album is that other than the two obvious choices I mentioned earlier, Metallica reached into their bag of songs and pulled out a few I didn't think they would do.  "Bleeding Me" from the album Load is one of those that I never thought I would hear on a live Metallica album.  "All Within My Hands" makes sense because it's the name of their foundation, but it's a song off the ill-received St. Anger album.  Another highlight is the acoustic version of "The Four Horsemen" from Kill 'Em All.  Metallica arranged it in a way that made it familiar but gave it a very fun country rock feel.  It's easily my favorite track on the release.  Rounding out the tracks are "Enter Sandman" and "Hardwired".  Two songs I didn't imagine I would ever hear acoustically.  Metallica took what is probably their biggest hit and turned it on its head.  Other than the lyrics and the end section, the song is almost unrecognizable, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  It definitely threw me for a loop at first, but I kinda like it.  "Hardwired" stays pretty true to the original, only played acoustically, and it closes out the set/album.

After being able to consume the album for the first time I was pleased with what I heard.  After listening to it a second time a little while later I can say I am a fan of the release.  It's fun, it's well recorded, and it's most importantly good.  If you are a Metallica fan, I don't know that you can really be disappointed in this offering from the band.  It's a cool chapter in their story, and a break from the normalcy of heavy guitars, and fast riffs.  The highlight of the album for me is "The Four Horsemen", and probably the track I like the least is "Nothing Else Matters".  It's a great song, but there were some hiccups in the playing at the start of the song that kind of makes my ears cringe a little.  After the song hits the verses it picks up just fine and in the end is still a good tune, but if I had to pick a least favorite track it would be that one.  In all, this album is fantastic and well worth the price tag of $35 that I paid at my local Down in the Valley store.

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Don't forget to check out the gallery of photos below for a look at the album artwork.  Also, please take a moment to check out our website located at briansvinylrecords.com.  There you can find some industry news, some links to pre-order albums I am looking forward to, as well as my recommendations (located at the bottom of the page) on vinyl gear and albums.  NOTE: Any purchases from the links on the site are part of the Amazon Affiliate program and we do earn a small percentage of money from them.  That money is used to pay for hosting of the site, and if there is any left over it goes to our vinyl addiction.  If you do purchase using one of our links, we thank you sincerely.  If not, no worries, we still thank you for your support of the blog and site. 

The rear of the album cover

Inside left gatefold

Inside right gatefold

Download card front

Download card back