“It also reveals the band’s determination to pull out all the compositional stops, throwing in extra sections, odd-numbered time signatures, and dense webs of guitar arpeggios and harmonized leads. At times, it seems like they’re doing it simply because they can; parts of the album lack direction and probably should have been trimmed for momentum’s sake” (Huey).

“The album again loosely follows the blueprint of Ride the Lightning, though not as closely as Master of Puppets. This time around, the fourth song – once again a ballad with a thrashy chorus and outro – gave the band one of the unlikeliest Top 40 singles in history; One was…based on Dalton Trumbo’s antiwar novel Johnny Got His Gun” (Huey). The song “is one of their best songs ever” (Williams) and “an instant metal classic” (Huey). It starts out “building from a slow, edgy beginning into effortless overdrive” (Williams) “and climaxing with a pulverizing machine-gun imitation” (Huey).

“The title track is excellent and never boring, despite clocking in at more than nine minutes. It’s the epic of the album, but all of the songs are long, displaying impressive chops and songwriting” (Williams).

“As a whole, opinions on ...And Justice for All remain somewhat divided: some think it’s a slightly flawed masterpiece and the pinnacle of Metallica’s progressive years; others see it as bloated and overambitious. Either interpretation can be readily supported, but the band had clearly taken this direction as far as it could. The difficulty of reproducing these songs in concert eventually convinced Metallica that it was time for an overhaul” (Huey).