Metallica – Ride
The Lightning
(Megaforce, 1984)
Buy the album
here
There
is no other band that could be at the top of this list. While there has been an
ongoing internal struggle throughout this year concerning the album that would
represent Metallica, it was always this band that would be written about on 15th
April 2018, which is, incidentally, my birthday. And as I turn 37 years old it
is fitting that Metallica have been in existence for nearly every month of that
time having been officially formed in October of 1981. Often credited with popularising,
or even creating, thrash metal with the 1983 release of their debut Kill ‘Em All, it only took one album for
the band’s ambitions to grow. Ride The
Lightning stepped beyond the all-out speed, aggression, and self-reflexivity
of Metallica’s first album and set a new standard in epic heavy music. The themes
of injustice, war, death, and fear were more complex and personal than before. The
music was more progressive, diverse in its instrumentation, and lyrically
nimble, yet it was exponentially heavier than Kill ‘Em All. Whatever they had given up in overall speed had been substituted
with the vicious stomp of a rhythmically pummelling riff like “For Whom The
Bell Tolls”. Whatever they had lost in crowd pleasing sing-alongs like “Seek and
Destroy” had been made up for by giant metal anthems like “Creeping Death”. And
whatever Metallica may have gone on to miss in terms of the pure fun of a song
like “Jump In The Fire”, fans of music could console themselves with the almost
unbearable beauty of “Fade To Black”.
Perhaps
knowing the challenge the album might pose for existing fans or thrash diehards,
it opens with its most direct and aggressive song. “Fight Fire With Fire”, after
its delightfully medieval acoustic guitar intro, is a furious, burning cauldron
of thrash with Hetfield’s verse vocal evoking incantations or satanic rituals
while the wrist-wrecking riffage and incessant, thumping drums give you whiplash
and dent your skull. The power and speed of the instrumentation is even
striking now, and when Kirk Hammett gives fans their first real glimpse of his
lead guitar chops on record it does not let up. Title track “Ride The Lightning”
continues this heaviness, but introduces more of the dark complexity that the
album embraces. An intro of harmonised guitars and pounding toms takes us to
the churning, mid-paced verse riff bolstering the lyrics now famous among fans,
“Death in the air/Strapped in the electric chair/This can’t be happening to me”.
These first two tracks only begin to open the ears of expectant thrash fans,
and it is in the iconic bell rings of “For Whom The Bell Tolls” that this album
truly takes shape.
The
late Cliff Burton’s insane, distorted, and squeezed bass line provides a unique
atmosphere to this opening, but it is the stellar interplay between guitar sounds
that define this song. The riff that appears at roughly the minute mark is
still the heaviest riff I have heard, sounding like concrete strings being
played by concrete plectrums by people with concrete hands. Metallica instantly
provide balance to this with a wonderfully gentle, guiding lead guitar sound that
lands us at the feet of the inspired chorus riff. But half of the genius of
this song is that it knows when to back off, giving the vocal as much space as
you’ll ever find on a thrash record, and even playing with moments of silence. Metallica’s
thematic preoccupation with the damage done to the individual in war, which most
will know from the iconic “One”, finds its first true expression in “For Whom
The Bell Tolls”, but in “Fade To Black”, a musical and structural precursor to “One”,
Metallica and James Hetfield contemplate for the first time the isolation and
emotional vulnerability of suicide. This is a huge step for a band who had
previously been singing about The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse or other
cartoonish imaginings of death or Death, and it results in perhaps Metallica’s
most moving song. The Spanish guitar with wailing electric lead behind it cuts
through the crushing heaviness off the previous three songs while Lars Ulrich’s
thick yet gentle drums display patience in what becomes an ever-steepening climb
to an unbelievable climax. “Fade To Black” is a perfect song. In the six times
I have been lucky enough to see it performed live I have cried every time, a
lot, and I barely manage to make it through a listening of it on CD, vinyl, or mp3
without shedding a tear. The pitch of Hetfield’s voice, the expansiveness of
the last big verse riff, and the escalating drama of that interplay between
Hetfield’s sorrowful rhythm guitar and Hammett’s high-pitched shredding build until
I feel like I’m going to burst. It is everything I could want heavy metal to
be.
As
if they knew that the heights of “Fade…” would be too much for me, the duo of tracks
that follow are a somewhat odd couplet. “Trapped Under Ice” and “Escape” seem
to exist in a concept album that did not get made. The former is a furious and
lively thrasher with exciting rhythm guitar and vocal parts that set it apart
from “Escape” which, aside from the gliding harmonising of the opening and the
gently catchy chorus, is a relatively uninspired drudge. Luckily “Creeping
Death” comes along to wash away the memory of “Escape”… WITH BLOOD. This is heavy
metal. Epic, theatrical, heavy, complex yet direct, filled with opportunities
for the crowd to chant, and designed to get people thrashing their necks. It
tells the story of Passover from the point of view of the destroying angel, but
more importantly has chants of “Die! Die! Die!” which have likely ruined the
larynxes of many over-excited teenagers. It was arguably the last time Metallica
were this much fun and this good all at the same time. “Creeping Death” will
always be one of Metallica’s best songs as it feels so pure, so part of them,
and absolutely rips listeners to bits at the same time. To piece listeners back
together the album closes with what would become a Metallica staple: an epic
instrumental. “The Call of Ktulu” is resplendent in its cyclical building of
tension, key changes, and patient leads. It is reminiscent of the skilled
escalation found in “Fade To Black” and I find myself rising and falling with
the scales and arpeggios of Hammett’s brilliant work. It is one of the many
tracks from this era of Metallica that carries the stamp of Cliff Burton’s influence,
the desire to branch out and not be constricted by expectations or genre
limitations. And that is what Ride The Lightning
represents for Metallica and their development of a music that would somehow
come to shape the mainstream of rock in the following thirty years.
In
recording Ride The Lightning
Metallica created a blueprint for themselves that contributed to their rise and
rise through their next two acclaimed albums, Master of Puppets and …And
Justice For All. And in less musically sure times they would return
successfully to that blueprint with 2008’s Death
Magnetic. So as I asked myself whether Ride…
or …Justice… would be my choice as most influential album in
my musical life, I simply asked myself which was most influential to Metallica.
Here is an album that defined what Metallica did for nearly a decade, made them
inspirations to legions of new thrash and extreme metal bands, and landed
Metallica on a major label following its successful release. Ride The Lightning is Metallica to me.
For years I had a long sleeve T-shirt with the album cover on the front and the
mantra “Birth – School – Metallica – Death” emblazoned on the back in that
unmistakable James Hetfield font. I’ve never felt so at home in a piece of
clothing, and while that mantra is becoming worryingly close to truth for me, I’ve
never felt so at home with a piece of music. In fact, that understates it. This
music feels as if it is an essential part of me, that I could not live without
it. As I tried explaining to an equally intrigued and worried friend who is not
particularly passionate about music, the sounds of Ride The Lightning do not feel as if they are coming from speakers,
but from within my body, as if my organs were vibrating in unison to produce
perfect sounds to express my soul. Metallica have been and will always be the
music of my soul.
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