Welcome to another edition of From My Collection. This past Monday, September 27, marked 35 years since Metallica bassist Cliff Burton perished in that fateful bus crash. Although he only played on their first three albums (arguably their best), Burton’s impact on Metallica’s sound cannot be overstated. His love for the NWOBHM and hardcore punk pushed the band over the edge, setting them aside as early forerunners of the thrash metal scene. In honor of Burton, this week’s essay revisits what I believe to be the band’s finest hour, Ride the Lightning. So strap yourself into the electric chair and grip with fear. This is going to be a high voltage ride.
As much as I wanted to pay tribute to Burton, I grappled with writing this essay for a few reasons. What can be said about Metallica that hasn’t been said already? They’re the biggest selling musical act of any genre of the last 30 years. They are as synonymous with metal as Nirvana is with grunge, Tupac is with rap, and so on. In other words, even if you’re not a metalhead, you’re aware of Metallica’s existence. Furthermore, how does one tackle an album as massive and momentous as Ride the Lightning? It’s sold over 6 million copies in America alone. Multiple cuts have since become staples of rock radio. Hell, you can even find Ride the Lightning shirts at Wal-Mart. I guess the only way I can write about Ride the Lightning is by first exploring my own personal journey with Metallica.
I can’t tell you the exact month or date, but I know the first time I willingly heard Metallica was late 2008. I was 9 years old and head over heels for Rush, Black Sabbath, and Judas Priest, all of whom I had just discovered that summer (Thanks dad!). Local Chicago radio stations like 104.3 Jack FM (RIP) and 97.9 The Loop (also RIP) would further expand my appetite for all things hard and heavy, introducing me to Guns N’ Roses, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, UFO, and so on. I’d spend hours listening to these stations, taking notes of the bands and songs played so I could check them out again later.
It was on one of these days, holed up in my bedroom doing math homework (What was 36 divided by 4 again?), that The Loop played a song I had NEVER heard before. It was fast and long and heavy…really heavy. In my little 9 year old head, I thought to myself, “Holy shit! This is heavier than Priest’s “Exciter”!”. As much as I was enjoying the many twists and turns within the song, I couldn’t wait for it to end just so I could hear who it was. 8 and a half minutes later, I got my answer, courtesy of Byrd…or was it Pat Capone? Nah, it was probably Byrd who said, “97.9 The Loop! Metallica, “Master of Puppets”! It doesn’t get much better than that.”
Needless to say, that weekend I went to my local Half Price Books and bought all the Metallica CDs my allowance money could buy. Unsurprisingly, Master of Puppets quickly became my favorite, and remained my favorite until about halfway through high school. I’m not sure what happened, but Ride the Lightning suddenly grabbed me in a way that Master of Puppets hasn’t since that day 12 years ago. This is by no means a knock at Master of Puppets. I’ll forever be grateful for its role in my heavy metal journey. That said, if you were to ask me to put on a Metallica album, the first one I’m going for is Ride the Lightning.
It’s hard to believe Ride the Lightning was made by the same band who released Kill ‘Em All just a year earlier. Everything, from the lyricism and musicianship, to the songwriting and arrangement, has evolved light years. Metallica may have been in their early 20s, but these denim clad thrashers were wise beyond their years, serving up an album as powerful as it is cerebral, exploring death in nearly every thinkable form (suicide, war, apocalypse, plague). Upon further examination, one could even argue Ride the Lightning is a concept album of sorts.
The album opens with my second favorite Metallica song of all time (“The Four Horsemen” will forever be #1), “Fight Fire with Fire”. I’ve gotten in many heated debates over this, but this is the most brutal song Metallica ever recorded. The other song regularly thrown into this discussion is “Damage, Inc.”, which absolutely kills, but I’d argue the production on Ride the Lightning gives “Fight Fire with Fire” the edge. Furthermore, listen to how fast those riffs are played. If James Hetfield’s vocals were any rougher, it could easily contend for being one of the first death metal songs.
“Ride the Lightning” serves as one of the album’s cornerstones. Although thrashy and mosh friendly in nature, it’s the first of a handful of tracks on the album that demonstrate the band’s artistic growth. What starts out as a midtempo headbanger eventually transforms into a multifaceted beast, boasting arguably the finest guitar solo of Kirk Hammett’s career. The twists and turns within merely foreshadow the progressive song structures that would dominate Master of Puppets and …And Justice for All.
“For Whom the Bell Tolls” might be the first example of a thrash band playing something other than thrash. This straightforward heavy metal anthem draws from the well of Sabbath. Lars Ulrich keeps the beat steady, while Cliff Burton’s melodic bass and Hammett and James Hetfield’s bone crunching riffs take centerstage. Despite its grim subject matter, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” was accessible enough to sneak into FM rock radio rotations and football stadium PAs all over the country.
Speaking of accessibility, side A closes with Metallica’s first bout with controversy, “Fade to Black”. It was controversial to the general public because it was used as a scapegoat for a teen girl’s suicide. It was controversial to metalheads because it was a “musical betrayal” of what Metallica stood for, or at least what they thought Metallica should’ve stood for. All these years later and I’m still trying to figure out what makes “Fade to Black” a “wimp-out”. Is it the acoustic guitar? The twin harmonies? The synthesized strings? The clean vocals? If “Fade to Black” is a “wimp-out”, then by definition, so is Judas Priest’s “Beyond the Realms of Death”, Iron Maiden’s “Hallowed Be Thy Name”, and Mercyful Fate’s “Melissa”. See where I’m going here?
As we flip over to side B, we’re greeted by neck snapping thrasher #2, “Trapped Under Ice”. More or less a cousin of “Fight Fire with Fire”, “Trapped Under Ice” reminded the doubters that this is indeed the band who recorded “Whiplash” the year before. It’s a textbook thrasher of the highest order, filled to the max with blistering riffs and rhythms galore. As Hetfield screams about being frozen alive, one wonders how many more angles Metallica can examine death.
“Escape” stands out for a couple reasons. For one, it’s the sole song on the album that deals with life instead of death (“Life’s for my own to live my own way.”). Oddly enough, it’s also the one song that, collectively speaking, nobody seems to talk about. Why? From a musical perspective, it’s no better or worse than “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, and it most certainly follows in its no frills metal mold. Even when looking at Metallica’s setlists, “Escape” has only been played live ONCE. Which yet again begs the question: WHY? I guess we’ll find out in my exclusive interview with James Hetfield, coming sometime in the next decade.
If “Trapped Under Ice” can be paired with “Fight Fire with Fire”, and “Escape” with “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, then it only makes sense that “Creeping Death” is the companion song to “Ride the Lightning”. Much like the title track, “Creeping Death” is as lengthy as it is thrashy, exploring in detail the tenth and final plague of Egypt. Little did Metallica know they were writing what would go down as the greatest biblical metal song of all time. “Creeping Death” is a Metallica staple to this day and for good reason. Its thrashing hard riffs, anthemic chorus, and crazed chants of “DIE! DIE! DIE!” are enough to fire up any headbanger.
Metallica saved the most musically intricate for last, “The Call of Ktulu”. Clocking in at nearly 9 minutes, no other song on here better showcases the band’s prog leanings. It is a clinic in top notch musicianship, with guitar harmonies and solos that rival the finest moments of Iron Maiden. Rounding it all out is Burton’s bass, which alternates between thunderous rhythm and virtuosic lead. If you took the rumbling ferocity of Lemmy and combined it with the jazzy precision of Jaco Pastorius, you’d have Cliff Burton. His bass playing is what made both early Metallica and this album so special.
We all know the rest of the Metallica story. Soon after Ride the Lightning came the major label deal, an opening slot for Ozzy Osbourne, and eventually, global domination. The lovely thing about Metallica’s catalog is that there’s something for everyone. Kill ‘Em All is the full throttle, punked up thrash assault. Master of Puppets and …AJFA are the forward thinking, intelligent prog suites. Metallica is the stripped down, hooks first, heaviness second, radio ready release. Ride the Lightning wraps all of these elements into one: balancing the line between Metallica’s past and future. Forgive me for using such a predictable cliché, but it’s lightning in a bottle, and that’s why it’s the best Metallica album.
Amen Brother!