Ride The Lightning
Audio CD
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£7.81
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Reviewer
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This 2nd Metallica album is their best. Its still Thrash but the riffs and arrangements are more intricate, the lyrics are more intelligent and biting, there's more of a dynamic to the music and James Hetfield's growl is meaner. There are 3 stand out tracks: For Whom The Bell Tolls with its high note fuzzed bass riff and tolling bell, ballad and song of 2 halves Fade To Black, and the riff-tastic set opener Creeping Death, all Egyptology & mummification. Most other tracks explore death and dying again from a lyrical perspective, with the title track perhaps unsurprisingly devoting itself to electrocution. Yum.
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For those familiar with Metallica through their self-titled 1991 album, also known as the black album, their 2nd album, released in 1984 will sound a lot different. This was Metallica in their true thrash / speed metal days. It opens up with some gently plucked guitar before Kirk Hammett's enormous bludgeoning guitar riff comes in, played at breakneck speed for opening track Fight Fire With Fire. James Hetfield bellows out the barely decipherable lyrics, frantically trying to keep up with the music.
The title track follows, with an exhilarating opening, a pounding drum beat from Lars Ulrich and a great guitar riff from Hetfield. He mostly sings about death here, like a lot of the best metal, notably in the bridge when he roars "I don't want to DIIEEE!" The portentous atmosphere is added to by For Whom The Bell Tolls, which starts with spooky bells before the guitars come in. The opening riff changes a couple of times, each one better than the last before the vocals come in.
Fade to Black provides a bit of a breather. It's Metallica's first foray into slower music. Again it's largely about death, but features some really nice sounding acoustic guitar and a great lead guitar, as Hetfield does a bit of proper singing, "I have lost the will to live, simply nothing more to give". Things speed up a bit in the bridge as the heavy guitars come in as Hetfield returns to his metal roar.
Back to speed for Trapped Under Ice, with more frenzied guitars, while Escape is a bit more mid-paced, almost sounding like a good song from one of the rubbish metal bands that were around in the 80s (Def Leppard/Van Halen). Creeping Death has yet more breakneck speed and high intensity with yet more hammer horror atmosphere, while closing instrumental The Call of Ktulu opens with a pretty picked guitar part before the heavy guitars come in and riff away for 8 minutes or so before the pretty opening part returns, then the album closes in dramatic style with all guns (and guitars) blazing.
One criticism is that the production does not allow much of Cliff Burton's bass in the mix. However, this album was a breath of fresh air for metal at the time in comparison to the aforementioned rubbish that was around.
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Even though i've grown out of metal this is a classic album that sounds great even after all these years. The Riffs are blinding.
The great thing about the earlier Metallica albums is they have a lot of variety in them, obviously they have the thrash tracks that you would expect but they always put the odd acoustic slower track that builds into a monster (Fade to black).
They also have the odd instrumental that are great songs in their own right ,Call of Ktulu and Orion (on master of puppets).
Undoubtedly the killer track is For whom the bell tolls. da-da da-da daaaa!
I still think Master is better, but only just.
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Ok, i bought this album at HMV along with Rust in Peace (Megadeth)and A Matter of Life and Death (Iron Maiden) aswell as another 'deth album.
I listened to this first and thought there was a mix of good and bad songs. with the title track probably the best song by a long way! I then listened to the megadeth album followed by this iron maiden one. This album is good, but for a true thrash classic either get Kill em all, Rust in peace, peace sells or Sound of white noise.
definately worth buying though
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5 out of 5, 8 great songs , the mini lp card sleeve makes the cd have a quality look.buy it, turn it up ,enjoy.
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