album or cover metallica ride the lightning

The issue arises when imagining “Escape” as the closing track. The notion of “Trapped Under Ice”, a classic epic metal track replete even with bright major key riffing and speed metal punch-up in terms of pacing and drums, leading directly into the substantially moodier “Creeping Death” isn’t a displeasing notion, and the transition from the dirge of “Creeping Death” into the prog-thrash showcase of “The Call of Ktulu” is one of the greatest track pairings in heavy metal history. Ride the Lightning however, did not demonstrate the final approach to this album pacing sequence for Master and Justice, the group would have track six be a moodier piece before the lengthy progressive instrumental of the record and closing on a high-tempo thrasher again, while on Ride the Lightning the up-tempo closer is moved to track 6, with all the others being dropped down by one.ĭespite not being the exact pacing structure that Metallica would employ to great effect on those two masterclass followup records, there’s no doubt that the modified version treats Ride the Lightning better.

Side 2 would then pick up with a parallel to the opening track, typically being an up-tempo thrasher.

Ride the Lightning was the first album to employ a pacing stratagem that became standard for the remainder of the golden period and found usage again on their more recent albums, with a sharp and fast opener, then the title track, followed by a moodier track before closing out Side 1 with a ballad. It is on Ride the Lightning that the Metallica everyone truly loves, the Metallica that conquered the world and birthed a million varied forms of heavy metal from the perfected crystalline forms of those first four albums, was born.Īn important aspect of this is the greater control over album-length pacing and sequence. In Metallica’s case, while Kill ‘Em All was the band’s first album on paper, it also represented the last in a line of demo recordings that marked the early Mustaine years, in a way making it more a finale than a beginning. It’s precisely why despite both Paranoid and Master of Reality being better records, Black Sabbath’s debut album still holds greater mystique in the greater tale of heavy metal mythology. There is always a power and an allure to those eruptive moments in history, be it a band’s history or a group’s history. These stylistic elements that the group committed to on Ride the Lightning became the foundation for their sound for that early golden period, being honed on Master of Puppets before being exploded out to its maximum on …And Justice For All. This shift on Ride the Lightning would prove to dominate Metallica’s future songwriting as well, expanding the band’s use of inventive guitar harmonies, prog rock-inspired structures and chord voicings while dialing back overall speed in order to increase the intricacy and well-roundedness of transitional riffs and fills. This shift became the foundational element of almost every track of Ride the Lightning (save for band-hated track “Escape” more on that one later).

Ride the Lightning tunes like “Fight Fire With Fire” and “Fade to Black” can be seen as evolutions of this stylistic dalliance, elaborating on the sense of atmospherics that were present in those earlier songs compared to the relatively straight-ahead thrashing heavy metal fare of songs like “Whiplash” and “Jump in the Fire”. This change would be inexplicable if not for Kill ‘Em All songs like “Four Horsemen”, “No Remorse”, and “Phantom Lord”, more programmatic tunes that sought to echo the epics-in-miniature of NWOBHM bands like Diamond Head and more obscure groups like Savage. Kill ‘Em All leaned heavily on elements of boogie beats nabbed from ’70s Judas Priest and the heavy swung feel to fast-paced riffs that Dave Mustaine would eventually take with him to Megadeth, but Ride the Lightning, released July 27th, 1984, almost wholly struck the swung-boogie vibe from its mostly slower-paced riffs, focusing instead on a near neo-classical sense of grandeur plucked more from the pages of groups like Rush, Rainbow, Blue Öyster Cult and even Priest’s more grandiloquent epics than bands like Sweet or even the more rock ‘n’ roll end of hardcore punk, a genre whom the members of the band were vocal fans. The first four Metallica albums are among the genre’s most powerful and enduring documents, and while the band’s debut LP, Kill ‘Em All, was a landmark for thrash metal, Ride the Lightning presented a quantum leap in terms of songwriting and structure.

Album or cover metallica ride the lightning