Metallica Drop Massive ‘Black Box’ Project Overflowing With Rare Archival Content

Metallica have launched a new ongoing archival project, The Metallica Black Box, where the band will share an array of artifacts, memorabilia, and rare vault content from throughout their career.

The Black Box launches Tuesday, Nov. 16, with The Black Album Exhibition, which features a variety of items tied to the band’s 1991 self-titled LP (known as The Black Album), which just celebrated its 30th anniversary. The exhibition includes a handful of galleries filled with rare photos, while Metallica will also livestream 10 rare shows from The Black Album era, selected by super-fan and Metallica historian Dan Nykolayko (also known as “Spider Dan”). 

The ticketed livestream series will kick off this Saturday, Nov. 20, with Metallica’s Sept. 11, 1991 show in Graz, Austria (an encore presentation will air Nov. 27). On Dec. 4, Metallica will air a Dec. 1, 1991 show from Cleveland, Ohio, while on Dec. 11 they’ll screen a Feb. 13, 1992 gig in Los Angeles. Tickets are available on the Black Box website.

Going forward, Metallica will continue to showcase rare audio, video, photos, and ephemera, while the band members will also be pulling items from their personal collections. The Black Box site currently teases two future projects, a 40th-anniversary retrospective and an installation dubbed The Art, which will arrive in 2022. On top of all the digital content, Metallica will also make some limited memorabilia and artifacts available for fans to purchase.

Back in September, Metallica released their massive Black Album 30th-anniversary box set, which featured an array of demos, rehearsals, live performances, and more. The group also released The Blacklist, a massive compilation featuring 53 artists — from Miley Cyrus to Weezer to J Balvin to Phoebe Bridgers — covering their favorite Black Album songs.