Metallica’s 90s output turned them into the biggest metal band of all time (divisive as much of it proved). Thus, as they entered the new millennium, the pressure to follow up their most commercially successful period seemed to be tearing the Four Horsemen apart. Their row with file-sharing site Napster was a PR disaster (even if time seems to have proven their concerns right) and they lost longtime bassist Jason Newsted to “private and personal reasons” at the start of 2001.
With all of this as a backdrop, Metallica hired the barracks of an old US Army base, named the Presidio, in San Francisco, and turned it into a makeshift studio. There, they planned to write and record what would become their eighth studio album. It didn’t happen. Instead, within 18 months, Metallica had relocated, scrapped everything and started again.
