![]() He gave Metallica many more options than just playing fast. “ Ride the Lightning gave Cliff a platform to shine as a songwriter and a player,” said Metal Mania fanzine founder and KUSF Ramgate Radio DJ Ron Quintana. t-shirt and a Lynyrd Skynyrd pin on his jean jacket and I think that gives you an idea of where his head was at.” ![]() He was really accomplished and was thinking beyond thrash and metal. “I think Cliff was the one who really taught them about melody,” adds Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian. He also enhanced the music with effect pedals, including the Morley wah-wah, which provided a sweeping, cutting sound under the metallic crunch. Since he had some knowledge of music theory, he showed Hetfield and Hammett how to augment core notes with complementary counter-melodies and how basic guitar harmony worked. Like Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris, who was one of Metallica’s musical heroes, Burton played with his fingers, imbuing the songs with fluidity. Since Mustaine was no longer in the group when the sessions for Ride the Lightning began, bassist Cliff Burton stepped to the forefront, contributing to six of the eight songs and encouraging his bandmates to experiment with different tempos and structures on songs like “ Fight Fire With Fire" and the cinematic instrumental “ The Call of Ktulu.” Guitarist James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich had written most of Metallica’s first album with Dave Mustaine. As they worked on songs for their second album, Metallica were determined to stay ahead of the pack, and when Ride the Lightning came out on July 27, 1984, they proved that they weren’t just one of the best thrash bands, they were one of the best bands, period. Anthrax put out Fistful of Metal and Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett’s original band, Exodus, had a hot underground demo with a similar sound. Slayer had released their blinding debut Show No Mercy. Still, Ride the Lightning stands alongside Slayer’s Reign in Blood as one of the two best metal albums of the 1980s and more than warrants this lavish boxset treatment.After Metallica’s debut, Kill ‘Em All, became a template for a new style of music, the band realized it was going to have to up the ante on thrash metal. However, the death of Burton that same year altered the group dynamic for the worse. In the three decades since, they’ve never quite hit the same heights, although they came close with 1986’s Master of Puppets. Even the album’s weakest link – Escape, an attempt to cross over to FM radio – isn’t bad. Elsewhere, the title track is a first-person-perspective reflection on death in the electric chair the frantically fast Trapped Under Ice, about cryogenics, and opener Fight Fire With Fire show that their greater maturity didn’t necessarily mean compromise. Recorded in drummer Lars Ulrich’s native Denmark, it’s the band’s masterpiece, the tempos more varied, the songs more fully rounded and considered, the lyrics actually thought through this time.Ĭreeping Death, the only single to be taken from the album, concerns itself with a biblical plague For Whom the Bell Tolls rides in on a series of mesmeric riffs Fade to Black is almost a ballad, albeit a ballad about depression that builds to a climactic guitar solo The Call of Ktulu, inspired by HP Lovecraft, is an eight-minute instrumental that seems half the length. Ride the Lightning (the deluxe version of which comes with a similarly dazzling array of extras) followed just a year later, but heralded a huge leap forward musically. Metallica perform Creeping Death at Glastonbury, 2014.
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