Metallica are prepping the definitive reissue of their seventh studio album, ReLoad, which will be issued as Reload (Remastered) on June 26 through their own Blackened Recordings label. The new edition of the album originally released in 1997 will come in a variety of formats, including a 2-LP vinyl edition, as well as a 3-CD expanded edition, CD, cassette and digital downloads.
It will also come in a sprawling deluxe box set that features the album on an 180-gram double LP and CD, “The Memory Remains” 7″, three live LPs, 15 CDs and four DVDs with unreleased content (live shows, rough mixes, demos), and MP3 download card of all the audio, as well as three tour laminates, posters, pins, stickers, guitar picks, lyrics sheets and a 128-page hardcover book with never-before-seen photos.
Fans who preorder the deluxe box will get instant grat versions of “The Memory Remains,” including the remastered original recording, an instrumental mix and the Take 18 Floor Take and Live in Brisbane. In addition, a Live in Philadelphia version of “The Memory Remains” is available now (see below).
According to a release, the deluxe, numbered pressing version of the quadruple platinum album that debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart at the time is “bursting” with exclusives, including on-air and TV performances, the Live at Ministry of Sound ’97 triple live album on 140g vinyl, never-before-released collections of riffs, 13 Rorschach Test cards and much more.
The news about the reissue also coincides with the opening of the #GetTheReLoadOut fan cover competition, which last year found thousands of Metallica fans submitting their interpretations of Load tracks for the first round of the #GetTheLoadOut contest. Round two will add a new category, so in addition to traditional musical covers, performance and visual artists are invited to participate. A different song from the album will be highlighted each week through the stunt, ending with two grand prize winners each earning an autographed ReLoad Remastered Limited Edition deluxe box set.
ReLoad was the sequel to 1996’s Load album, and like its predecessor, it expanded the band’s thrash metal sound, from adding hurdy-gurdy and violin to “Low Man’s Lyric” to collaborating with their first-ever guest vocalist, Marianne Faithfull, on “The Memory Remains.” It also featured “The Unforgiven II,” the sequel to their 1991 song “The Unforgiven.”
Watch “The Memory Remains” (live in Philadelphia, Nov. 11, 1997) below.
