There are alsos touches of genius scattered throughout this record. There are plenty of tempo variations on at least six of the songs here ( Trapped Under Ice and Fight Fire With Fire are more straightforward thrash anthems), but they all remain as catchy as the next, and indeed their choruses, riffs and solos ring in our ears even a long time after listening to this album. The simplistic writing of Kill ‘Em All has turned into songs that are as complex as they are catchy. And of course, he, like everybody else, gets his solo spot on the nine-minute Call Of Ktulu. However, he is present in almost every song – listen closely and you can hear his buzz behind the guitars on Trapped Under Ice or For Whom The Bell Tolls. Particular cases in point are the title track itself and – again – Creeping Death, where his bass comes up in full force, even at times outmuscling the guitars. As for Cliff Burton…it’s a consensus that he helped revolutionize rock bass, and here his huge low end – so sorely missed on later albums with Jason Newsted – is present and audible throughout. And Lars Ulrich is still not the world’s greatest drummer, but he is capable of some good fills, notably at the beginning of Creeping Death or during Fade To Black. James Hetfield’s vocals have also matured and deepened, losing the high-ish adolescent pitch that characterized him on the previous album. Sure, you can still hear the seams where Kirk Hammett’s solos are glued together, but his rhythms are much more consistent than on Kill ’Em All. On this album, musicianship has vastly improved. Simply put, every song here is either a classic or a criminally overlooked gem (apart from Fight Fire With Fire, which is somewhat weaker, and Call Of Ktulu, which isn’t really my thing, but is still a classic instrumental nonetheless). In fact, this album rivals Dookie and Piece Of Mind for lack of filler and songcrafting excellence. More focused than Master of Puppets, better played than Kill ‘Em All and more honest than the Black Album, this is as perfect a collection of eight songs as we are likely to get nowadays. Ride The Lightning is nothing more nothing less than Metallica’s magnum opus. The same band that in 1983 had put out the punky, clumsy Kill ‘Em All presented their second opus only one year later, and the evolution was abyssal. Review Summary: The best metal album ever made? Yeah, probably.īack in the early 1980’s, Metallica were progressing in leaps and bound.
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