“Thrash deficiency? Take ‘Ride the Lightning’, and call me in the morning.”

By DeadSun

Every genre of music has its own fair share of material that its adherents acknowledge as “classics”. So should sub-genres fall in line with this? 

Absolutely.

Whether it’s delta blues, free jazz, southern rock, doom metal, hardcore punk, ska--- whatever--- each of these musical pockets has their own set of classics. Thrash is no exception, and I’m here to tell you about one such classic : Metallica’s Ride the Lightning.

After the promising response to their debut release, the four horsemen named James, Cliff, Kirk, and Lars, rode into Sweet Silence Studio (Copenhagen) with the intention of churning out their sophomore effort. Ride the Lightning was released in November of 1984, with the first single off of the album, “Creeping Death”, being put out on November 23. To the extent that the charts dictate quality (cough cough), the album stayed under the mainstream’s radar, peaking at #100 in the spring of 1985. Then again, I understand that Vanilla Ice once reigned over these same charts, so let’s not hope this is the sole litmus test you use to ascertain what essential music is. One might also find it interesting that, over the “long-haul”, this album has succeeded in going platinum--- FIVE times over. Longevity : an unquestionable ingredient for a classic.

My take : Ride the Lightning, taken as a whole, showed a band who had taken the raw, concussive punch that they delivered with Kill’em All, and sharpened it over a serious desire to increase song structure, atmosphere, complexity, and the smoldering intensity which is so often encountered within the realm of thrash. With Ride the Lightning, though, Metallica displayed remarkable vision when they incorporated some RATHER unconventional “thrash moments” to the music contained on this album. This is a VERY important thing to bear in mind, once you start wondering what makes this album a classic. Thrash was still relatively young, four to five years as the general consensus goes, and I believe its sound had not crystallized to the point where many of its bands were ready to “break the ranks”, and expand the peripheries of the formula. I also find, without question, the specter of Dave Mustaine’s influence drifting through the musical corridors of “Ride the Lightning” (cough-cough-spider chords-cough-cough). We can also dole out some credit to Dave Mustaine for the title track, as well as “The Call of Ktulu”. Now--- if any of you are wondering “Dave who?”, then it’s high time someone revealed Metallica’s pre-“black album” existence to you. 

Welcome aboard.  

We all know the saying --- “hindsight is 20/20”--- and the classically inspired introduction heard on “Fight Fire With Fire”, as well the ballad tempo “Fade to Black”, are two such significant examples which have to be given great consideration. Granted, in the case of “Fight Fire With Fire”, the “pretty music” is soon replaced by a riff that is the musical equivalent of getting a facial peel with napalm. 

Another vital, primal, essential dimension to the music contained on Ride the Lightning, which really helped set it apart from the pack--- came in the form of Cliff Burton.

Cliff Burton was hardly representative of what you hear from a thrash metal bass player--- or perhaps a METAL bass player, for that matter. If your ears are set just right, as you listen to Cliff play, you are AT ONCE surprised to not hear a guy who is there to simply thicken the guitar-centered sound, and pound out root notes. You hear a man who was influenced by Geddy Lee, Geezer Butler, and Stanley Clark. Cliff gave the bass a unique identity in thrash, and he did it early on in a way that put him way ahead of the curve.

On September 27th, 1986, Cliff Burton was killed in a bus accident near Stockholm, Sweden.

Who knows what directions Metallica’s collective sound and songwriting might have taken, had Cliff survived? I suppose that the final and only concrete glimpse we were given, if we were to grasp for a hypothetical answer to that question, would lie in the material contained in 1986’s Master of Puppets.

Rest in peace, Clifford Lee Burton--- ( 2.10.62 --- 9.27.86 ). 

Still, when it comes to “classics”, it must always boil down to the “DS Test” (yes, I have a patent pending for this). 

The classic must mature with age. The classic does not fizzle or stall out, more and more, as each year goes by. The classic defies the ebb and flow of trend, and soars above everything we know about past, present, and future--- and it does so because it is timeless. The classic, when taken from the shelf and dusted off, still shines, performs, and makes the senses reel as it did from the day it was born. Now--- you ask me if Ride the Lightning is ALL of those things :

You bet your music lovin’ ass, it is.

Feeling groggy, and thrash-deficient?

Take Ride the Lightning, and call me in the morning.

Until next month… 

… this is the DeadSun, signing off.

DS

What can be said about Metallica’s brilliantly ambitious Ride the Lightning? The album was released a full two years (and five months) before my birth, but even a generation on it was easy to realize the importance and the greatness of the Bay Area Thrashers’ 1984 release.

For the past five years I’ve spent a great deal of my time worshipping Metallica’s big four; Kill Em All, Ride The Lightning, Master Of Puppets and, of course, …And Justice For All. While I’m constantly torn between Master and Justice for my favourite Metallica album, arguably neither is as important as Lightning was to the evolution and development of the band's signature thrash style. 

If you played a track off Kill Em All (say… "Motorbreath") and then a track off Lightning ("Fade To Black") to some clueless mortal fool without any real knowledge of metal, my bet is the man wouldn’t believe the two tracks came from the same band. Lightning has that profound impact on people. It took Metallica from a grass roots thrash band (much of which can be attributed to Mustaine) to a fearless innovator, unrivalled in their peak.
 
Of what do I speak? The harmonized lead lines, the passages of pseudo-classical acoustic guitar work and the ballads with skull crushing peaks. Each track is an impassioned and inspired thrash metal experiment, perfectly executed with unrivalled finesse. Powerful thrash attacks such as "Fight Fire With Fire" and "Creeping Death" are offset by the awe-inspiring seven-minute-plus power epics like "Fade To Black" and the album’s title track.

Metallica have taken the old blueprint of thrash and injected more melody and technicality than ever dreamed. This album marked the end of simplistic, speed-obsessed thrash bands and took the metal world a step forward in the evolution of thrash. My one qualm with the album is Lars’ very limited drumming ability – which one fellow reviewer referred to as ‘simplistic, barbarous drumming.’ But even an a**hole like Lars couldn’t take away from the unabated beauty and intensity that is Ride the Lightning.

When I think of rock albums that really standout and challenged the foundations of the rock of their time, Ride the Lightning is always at the top of my list. Forget Master of Puppets, that was just Metallica's first big success, Ride the Lightning was the culmination of their style and in my opinion the band's high point. They have never topped this album (though they have come close). 

When you listen to the band's raw debut Kill Em All and then you listen to Ride the Lightning, you get the feeling you are listening to a band ten years later. But that wasn't the case. We instead heard what we hope to hear from bands on their sophomore albums, a huge leap forward. While the rawness of Kill Em All has it's appeal, with Ride the Lightning the band harnessed that energy and focused it more. Even with the full power of the songs here, the composition and execution is masterful. It's almost a metallic symphony. And I'm hard pressed to find songs that top the brilliance of "Fade To Black," "For the Whom the Bell Tolls", "The Call of  Ktulu" and "Creeping Death". 

I've admitted it before, I hated Metallica when they first started to get big. I have a natural tendency to write off things that are "buzzed" about and in metal circles when Master of Puppets came out, they became the band to like. So I shied away from them. A few months later I got to see them open for Ozzy and had to grudgingly admit that they put on a great show, but I still wasn't going to change my mind.  So like an idiot, I really missed out on a historic tour because I was too stubborn to honestly check out the band and I sat there wanting to hate them. 

I got my first real taste of Metallica with an open mind the night Cliff Burton died. My friends at school were really upset about it (I was in 8th grade at the time). That night KNAC ran a special memorial show in honor of Cliff and I tuned in towards the end right when they played "For Whom The Bell Tolls", and I admit I teared up a bit. 

Over the next few years, I paid attention to Metallica but never gave in to my original stubborn stand. Then about ten years ago I was in a used record store and they had a cassette of Ride the Lightning for $2.  I bought it and the minute I put it in I became an instant fan.  I wore that tape out along with two subsequent copies and it quickly because one of my all time favorite albums. I think I appreciated it more in hindsight, and judging it against metal that came after (as well as Metallica).  So Ride the Lightning grudgingly earned a top spot in my CD collection and when it comes to naming classics, this one is now a no brainer for me.  
 

Since DeadSun, Hobo and aG made such great cases for this CD, I won't add a full review as I agree with practically everything written here. But I do have to add that I think Metallica and this album really opened up the third generation of metal. By that I mean albums and artists that really changed the direction of the genre. The first was Sabbath, the second was Priest and Maiden, and in the mid-80s Metallica came out into the metal mainstream and the scene really split in two directions. One towards the heavier sounds of Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer etc and the other in the more glam direction (don't believe me go watch the videos for Ozzy and Priest from 1986).   

I think those first three Metallica albums are masterpieces and I credit a lot of that to Cliff Burton, the man that appeared to really drive the band in the early days. Remember it was Cliff that was uncompromising; he was reportedly the one that refused to do a video and wanted to keep the Metallica sound pure. It's hard to imagine what may have happened to Metallica is we hadn't lost Cliff but I'm glad that we do have those first three albums where he was the keystone of the band. The original Megaforce release is one of the prides of my record collection.     

Metallica used to be Metal Up Your Ass!  Ride the Lightning lives up to that and is one of the most important metal albums ever made.  

Metallica - Ride the Lightning
Label: Elektra - Megaforce Records (original release)
 

Tracks: Fight Fire With Fire Ride The Lightning For Whom The Bell Tolls Fade To Black Trapped Under Ice Escape Creeping Death Call Of Ktulu, The

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