Review: Kill ‘Em All by Metallica
27th of August, 2009
Metallica
Kill ‘Em All
1983
James Hetfield • Lars Ulrich • Kirk Hammett • Cliff Burton
This record has 10 songs on it. Of those 10, one song is an instrumental, two have lyrics concerning imaginary creatures, and seven songs are about rocking. This is not the thinking man’s album.
To be fair, I listen to a lot of music with stupid lyrics. Look no further than the Misfits, for instance. With them, though, it’s somehow forgivable since the songs are so good, and usually about monsters and blood and similar. But simple-minded lyrics about rocking. Dang.
No life ’till leather
Gonna kick some ass tonight
Right on par with that song by the Beatles about doing it in the road.
Anyway, stupid lyrics aside, this is a far better recording than the No Life ‘Till Leather demo. Not only was it recorded with higher quality equipment, but the band’s music teacher wasn’t needed to count the beat for most of the songs.
Which reminds me: I’ve figured out why I’m doing this project of listening to Metallica. I’m taking a guitar class as part of my courseload this semester, and it’s hard. I mentioned that to somebody, along with a comment about having newfound respect for Metallica. And so here I am.
On Kill ‘Em All, James is still singing like a SouthPark character, and that’s too bad. Also, while the record was made in ’83, they still had no idea what metal was really supposed to sound like yet, so it sounded like this. Which really makes no sense because Iron Maiden released The Number of the Beast in ’82, and that’s something of a masterpiece. I guess Metallica was still new.
After listening to this record, I put on Dream Theater to cleanse my ear’s palette, which means the project is doing its job. I just didn’t expect the cost to be so high.
★☆☆☆☆ – 1 star because I’d rather listen to this than the radio.
I have a different outlook towards “Kill ‘em All”. First off, I lived through this era of metal, and I remember when this album started appearing in record stores in my sophomore year of HS. It came off as an amateurish debut, and my reaction to the songs was pretty much in line with your reaction here: mostly junk, but Seek and Destroy is kinda cool. I started taking Metallica seriously when I heard a few tracks of Ride the Lightning. It was around then that I went back and finally bought my own copy of Kill ‘em All. I started liking more tracks after repeated listenings: Jump in the Fire has a catchy riff, and I liked the energy of Whiplash. By the time Master of Puppets came out I started to like more of Kill ‘em All, notably, Four Horsemen and No Remorse. I didn’t listen to Metallica much in the mid-90′s, but came back to them when they did the Garage Inc. album. Now, it is Kill ‘em All that I listen to most of all their albums. Even with the ridiculous lyrics of many tracks, the overall sound of the album is pretty cohesive. Its rawness is, for me, a nice contrast to the heavily polished turds and cartoonish bullshit that dominated that mid-80′s era of heavy metal (bands like Def Leppard and minor players like Krokus and WASP come to mind). This is a garage band’s debut.
I almost wrote, “★☆☆☆☆ – 1 star because I’d rather listen to this than Bon Jovi.” And you make a compelling argument. I often wished I were 10 years older or so, so I could have been around for the early 80′s punk days. I’d like to have broken bones at Black Flag shows, but alas, I had to settle for a cut elbow at a Rollins Band show instead.