Amazon.com description: Product Description: [NOTE: (This is the second book of the two-book biography of the band. The first book is titled Birth School Metallica Death.)]

[Read by Ray Porter]

Brilliantly chronicled by top UK music writers Paul Brannigan and Ian Winwood, this is a masterful conclusion to an epic rock tome. The final chapter of Paul Brannigan and Ian Winwood's in-depth coverage of Metallica details the latter half of the band's extraordinary, decades-long career.

The second volume of Metallica's definitive biography opens as the band breaks through to mainstream with its fifth album, Metallica (a.k.a. The Black Album), topping the Billboard charts and its hit single ''Enter Sandman'' dominating the airwaves. By 1993, after a two-year tour, Metallica had become the biggest hard-rock band in the world. Success naturally brought new challenges, and the band ran the risk of alienating its original fans. It was beset by controversy over stylistic shifts, concessions to the mainstream, its stance on file sharing (in Metallica v. Napster), even the band members' haircut decisions. By the end of the century, they were a band teetering on the brink of self-destruction. However, a stunning return to form awaited.

Metallica's legacy is as unique as it is remarkable: having sold over 100 million albums their status as the biggest Metal band of all time is indisputable. Following the acclaimed first volume, which chronicled the band's rise to international stardom, the authors now explore the challenges and tensions that ensued for the band. From the phenomenal, breakthrough, success of 1991's 'Black' album to the band's reinvention with the 'Load/Reload' albums; bassist Jason Newsted's shock exit in 2001 and the group's subsequent meltdown, as laid bare in the unvarnished fly-on-the-wall documentary ''Some Kind Of Monster'', to the divisive 'St. Anger' and 'Lulu' sets (recorded with Rick Rubin and in collaboration with Lou Reed respectively), Brannigan and Winwood brilliantly capture this unique bands epic, louder than life saga.