the black album is one of Metallica's best
so you are wrong on at least one count. also, Death Magnetic is superb, so arguably they are still really good
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Wed 23 Feb 2011, 9:12, 1 reply, 15 years ago)

It's probably their third best album
But only because everything since then has been gash, and as such it marked the beginning of a long trajectory downwards after two absolutely stunning albums
(Darth Foxtrot A one-man army dedicated to making fetch happen, Wed 23 Feb 2011, 9:22, Reply)

thing is
they are all good (except St Anger) but they are all really quite different.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Wed 23 Feb 2011, 9:25, Reply)

Load and Reload are basically the same album with a drop in quality
but I'll give you that the rest are reasonably different from each other. Ride The Lightning starts out like Kill 'Em All pt II until Cliff Burton's influence becomes clear
(Darth Foxtrot A one-man army dedicated to making fetch happen, Wed 23 Feb 2011, 9:31, Reply)

it was going to be a double album
hence them sounding similar.

Neither is better than the other though. There are some superb tracks on Reload. Fixxxer for one, is an excellent song
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Wed 23 Feb 2011, 9:41, Reply)