Metallica

Kill ‘Em All

1983

James Hetfield • Lars Ulrich • Kirk Hammett • Cliff Burton

Metallica starts playing worthwhile songs. James’ vocals aren’t totally mature yet, but you can tell he’s wearing roomier underpants on this record. Production values are really decent. The lyrics have also improved. I don’t think there’s a single, “Let’s Rock!” song on the record. We’ve got songs about war, the death penelty and electric chair, one Bible story, and sort of ironically, one song about suicide and one song about living life to the fullest.

The song For Whom The Bell Tolls is sort of an archetype of this album: fast and slow parts, melody, thoughtful lyrics, solid musicianship, and five minutes long.

One weird thing: While I’ve got no problem with solos, there were quite a lot of spots on the album that sounded like little more than a band playing accompaniment for a guitar soloist. The sheer length of these got  a little tiresome, and I imagine the rest of the band just sort of standing around, playing the same thing over and over while Kirk does his guitar solo thing.

I keep comparing Metallica to Dream Theater, which isn’t a totally fair comparison; Dream Theater came along some ten years after Metallica, which meant they had a lot of time to think about what they liked and what they didn’t from a mature metal scene. Metallica were breaking new ground in these early days, which means that I can forgive a lot. So while there’s a lot of drums beating out a beat, a guitar playing something, with the other guitar and bass following that first guitar, with some vocals also more or less following that guitar part, there’s a lot of quality music, writing, and playing on this album.

Having listened to it like five times for this essay, the problem is that it’s not really a lot of fun to listen to. Trapped Under Ice and Escape are fun, and the sing-along in Creeping Death is rad, but overall, it’s a very serious album. Not a lot of humor is going on. Even Slayer, in these early days, knew how full of crap they were and were having fun with it. Anthrax, too, has always tempered their metal with humor. Megadeth even has a song inspired by Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Ride the Lightning is a solid record. It’s not a masterpiece, and there’s a lot wrong with it, but there’s a lot right, too.

★★★☆☆ – 1 star for earning the, “most improved vocals and lyrics,” award, 1 star for good songwriting, 1 star for good playing. Zero stars for the solos and the jokes.