Metallica were proto post metal in some songs in 1996.
I think there’s an angle that doesn’t get discussed enough—especially around three songs: “Bleeding Me,” “The Outlaw Torn,” and “Fixxxer.”
I think that these tracks can be seen as proto–post-metal, or at least as an early exploration of ideas that the post-metal scene would later fully develop in the 2000s.
These songs break pretty radically from Metallica’s thrash roots—not just stylistically, but structurally and emotionally:
They abandon tight, riff-driven songwriting in favor of ong-form, evolving compositions
They rely heavily on repetition and gradual development, rather than constant variation
They build toward emotional climaxes through layering and dynamics, not speed or technicality
They create a strong sense of atmosphere and space, sometimes more than “songs” in the traditional sense
In other words, they function more like journeys than tracks.
Take “The Outlaw Torn” or “Fixxxer”—they’re built around slow, hypnotic progression, with tension accumulating over several minutes before release. That’s a core principle of what bands like Isis, Neurosis (in their later era), or Cult of Luna would go on to systematize: music as a gradual emotional and sonic transformation.
What’s interesting is that Metallica weren’t following that movement—they were actually slightly ahead of it in this specific direction. These songs came out in 1996–1997, before post-metal really solidified as a recognizable genre in the early 2000s.
If you isolate these songs, they feel like something else entirely:
not commercial compromises, but experiments in atmosphere, repetition, and emotional depth.
On these three tracks, they briefly stepped into territory that the post-metal scene would later claim and expand.