Metallica have announced a remastered re-release of their 1997 album Reload, set to come out on June 26 via their own label Blackened Recordings.
This updated version of the California metal giants’ quadruple-Platinum-selling seventh studio album has been remastered by Reuben Cohen and Greg Fidelman at Lurssen Mastering and will come in a variety of formats.
The most extensive package will be the Reload Remastered Limited Edition Deluxe Box Set, which the band call “a passionately and thoroughly curated document of 1997-1998 era Metallica, bursting with exclusives including previously unreleased demos, rough mixes, live performances, on-air and television appearances, and much more”.
The package comes with the remastered Reload album on double vinyl, as well as the seven-inch vinyl single The Memory Remains and the triple-vinyl live album Live At Ministry Of Sound ’97. It also comes with 15 CDs – including the Reload remaster and collections of demos, live recordings, rough mixes and other rarities – and four DVDs of behind-the-scenes, live performance and studio rehearsal footage.
Other options include the remastered album on 2LP, CD, cassette and 3CD formats. All of them are available for preorder now via the Metallica website.
To accompany the news, Metallica have put out the remastered version of The Memory Remains, plus a live recording of the single taken from their 1997 performance in the car park of CoreStates Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Listen to them both below.
The Reload reissue will come out almost exactly a year after Metallica similarly remastered and re-released their 1996 album, Load. The two albums were recorded simultaneously from May 1995 to April ’96 at The Plant at Sausalito, California, produced by Bob Rock.
The Load/Reload era was a controversial one for Metallica. The albums saw the band move away from their iron-clad metal sound and embrace more blues and country influence, irritating a portion of their fanbase. The members also shed their metal image by cutting their hair and doing promotional photoshoots with Anton Corbijn, best known for his work with Depeche Mode and U2.
Lead guitarist Kirk Hammett reflected on the controversy during a 2025 interview with Rolling Stone and said that fans have come to embrace the material.
“But when those albums first came out, it was like, ‘Fuck Load,’” he remembered. “‘Fuck Reload, fuck Metallica.’ But nowadays we play [Reload opener] Fuel and people go nuts. We play [Load’s lead single] Until It Sleeps and people fucking know every fucking word.”
Metallica, who have since re-embraced heavy metal and put out their latest album 72 Seasons in 2023, are currently gearing up for a summer European tour. Certain stops will see the band employ their No-Repeat Weekends format, where the play the same venue on two different dates with entirely different setlists. See their schedule and get tickets via their website.
