Enter Night

A Biography of Metallica

By: Mick Wall

Narrated by: Alister Austin

Sprung from the roots of '70s hard rock, Metallica defined the look and sound of 1980s heavy metal, just as Led Zeppelin had for hard rock and the Sex Pistols for punk before them. Inventors of thrash metal - Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth followed - it was always Metallica who led the way, who pushed to another level, who became the last of the superstar rockers.

Though plagued by adversities, including the death of their bassist in a bus crash, infighting and substance abuse, they survived to became the biggest-selling band in the world. With 100 million records sold worldwide, their music has extended its reach beyond rock and metal, and into the pop mainstream, as they went from speed metal to MTV with their hit single "Enter Sandman". Until now there hasn't been a critical, authoritative, in-depth portrait of the band. Mick Wall's thoroughly researched, insightful work is enriched by his interviews with band members, record company execs, roadies, and fellow musicians. He tells the story of how a tennis-playing, music-loving Danish immigrant named Lars Ulrich created a band with singer James Hetfield and made his dreams a reality. Enter Night delves into the various incarnations of the band, and the personalities of all key members, past and present - especially Ulrich and Hetfield - to produce the definitive word on the biggest metal band on the planet

©2011 Mick Wall (P)2021 Upfront Books

Would’ve been 5 stars if there were less Dave talk

9 hours in and the author is still bringing up Mustane. Other than that,it’s great!

Good book! Odd choice of narrator.

From the first 5min I thought there’s no way I’ll get through this book! The foreign accent of the narrator had me envisioning the band as cheeky blokes from Liverpool. Offputting choice but the story turned out good enough the make me stick it out.

Great book. Take with a grain of salt

I understand that when you write a book you need to put a little bit of yourself into it. But I think the author should keep his personal opinions about music and production out of the story and just base the book on fact. it was a great book up until the end but the author sounded very bitter about the music and the way Metallica was going. did they screw him over somehow? Anyway, it was still entertaining. If you like metal, biographies or books about what goes on backstage this is a must read.

Great inside look especially at the early years

Mick displays his obvious history and incredible knowledge of the band and isn’t afraid to give his own opinions where he wants. This book is a good companion piece to the Ian Winwood/Paul Brannigan biographies though both cover pretty similar material it is interesting the events that the different biographers choose to go in depth on. The history of the latter half of the band’s career towards Death Magnetic feels a bit rushed just compared to how in depth Mick was able to get on the bands first 3 albums.

Definitely worth a purchase for the beginner fan learning about the band or the die hard fan looking for those one or two nuggets they’ve never heard before.

Narration was great for the story. I only had minor gripes with a couple of errors that may have been text or narration issues but don’t take away from the story as a whole (i.e. AT&T park is a baseball stadium not a football pitch though it has hosted American football games occasionally)

Deep Dive into the Metallicaverse

Overall, a solid read. Great for those just getting into Metallica’s music and wanting to know a little more about the band, their origins, and trajectory. The author does an excellent job at building a timeline of events that both captures the reader’s attention and is easy to follow. The only con is that the narration felt a bit dry at times, however this could be due to the biographical nature of the text.

wish it never ended

this book everything i want in a metallica book. whens the movie happening? dying here

IF you told me Jason slept with his Fiancé I’d believe it…

Between the timeline inaccuracies and that one time at bandcanp he interviewed them in 2009 (This book could’ve been titled “Lars told me back in 2009…”) I couldn’t make it all the way through I tried but I had to cut it off at the last two chapters. This is a standard length magazine article stepped on and fluffed up into a book. Save your audible credit and buy one Mustaine’s books. To paraphrase Cameron Crowe paraphrasing Lester Bangs: “ and Lisa Mustain has the courage to be a buffoon”

Not what I thought it was

Although it talks about Metallica and their past, it seemed more like the author was reviewing Metallica's music

Good book, a bit critical about the band.

I really liked all the details he went into, I loved listening to his little side stories and things, but as the world's biggest Metallica fan, I feel like alot of the time he was overly critical of the band and made them seem like he didn't understand them as much as he wants you to think. Maybe it's because he's an English man and as an American we have different ways of expressing the way we speak, but I felt like he could have been more of a fan at some points in the book.

Terrible narrator

I had to return the book. I made it about 2 hours in but I couldn’t stand the narrator. I was upset because Metallica is one of my favorite bands. Looking at other reviews it looks like I may not have missed much. Very disappointing.