METALLICA — Ride the Lightning (review)

METALLICA — Ride the Lightning album cover Album · 1984 · Thrash Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
friso
Metallica - Ride the Lightning (1984)

This thrash-metal album is perhaps my favorite of the genre. The sound of the band is amazing and the song-writing had become way more innovative and even melodic than on the debut. The albums has some metal-classics like For Whom the Bell Tolls, Fade to Black, Creeping Death and of course Metallica's first progressive metal epic The Call of Ktulu.

The rock'n roll and punk influences of the debut were excluded and a modern thrash metal sound saw the daylight on this album. Fight Fire with Fire is even pointed at as the beginning of the speed-metal genre. The musicianship is very strong, but the main ingredient of this album is still the memorable song-writing for me. Songs like For Whom the Bell Tolls and Fade to Black are very sticky and have an emotional impact. Another favorable element of the album is the fact it doesn't have a weak track.

Conclusion. A great thrash-metal album with some amazing song-writing and musicianship. The impact of tracks like Fade to Black and The Call of the Ktulu make this a special record within the genre. A very innovative and important record for the genre, but it also influenced the progressive metal quite a lot. Four and a halve stars.
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