ride the lightning

Metallica expanded their brutal thrash onslaught with the melodic innovations of this expressive electric extermination.  Their debut album 'Kill 'Em All' had revolutionized the scene with its fusion of metal and hardcore punk; but for the follow-up, the band was ready to break out of that mold.  

Lars Ulrich would expound:   "I think the first album fits into [the 'Thrash Metal'] category, every number going at 500 mph, but you can't call songs like 'Fade To Black' and 'The Call of Ktulu' from the current LP, Thrash Metal.  'Fight Fire With Fire' and 'Trapped Under Ice' are pretty much the ultimate in Thrash, I think, but from a musician's point of view I don't really like that term.    It implies lack of arrangement, lack of ability, lack of songwriting, lack of any form of intelligence.  Thrash Metal to me is just 'open E' riffing for five minutes as fast as you can go.  We do play very fast, but I think there's a lot more to our songs than just thrashing.  We try and arange and structure them with good breaks, tempo changes, and choruses with melody lines...The only reason we didn't use a producer for 'Ride The Lightning' was due to finances.  We had a certain budget, so we decided to opt for the best studio with the best in-house engineer rather than go for a half-assed studio somewhere with a half-assed producer and a half-assed engineer."

'Ride The Lightning' was recorded at Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen, Denmark with James Hetfield on lead vocals, rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, 12-string guitar, and harmony guitar solo in "Fight Fire with Fire";  Kirk Hammett on lead guitar;  Cliff Burton on bass guitar and backing vocals;  and Lars Ulrich on drums.  The band shared production duties with engineer Flemming Rasmussen.

Hetfield reflects:    "I'd have to say 'Ride The Lightning'  is my favourite. 'Kill 'Em All' , our first album, was already written when we went into the studio but 'Ride...' was the first next step, when we started to discover the studio and what we could do in it. That was kinda the fun bit, and it still is ... I remember writing ['For Whom The Bell Tolls'], and I was the only one that knew what the vocal pattern was going to be, everyone else just heard a bunch of open chords, and that was the song. They were thinking, "Are you sure?" and I was like, "Just wait." I sang the words, and that really brought it all together. I think simplistic works, and obviously it worked. I'd say at least half the black album is pretty simplistic. There's less complexity than '...And Justice For All' or 'Puppets'. A song like that was probably the single that never was, a single before we were allowed to have a single. I think the song is amazing. It works great, and Cliff [Burton]'s bass playing is highlighted on it."

Released on independent Megaforce Records, 'Ride The Lightning' would peak at number one hundred in the US, eighty-seven in the UK, seventy-eight in Switzerland, forty in Norway, thirty-eight in Australia, twenty-two in Sweden, and number nine in Finland.  It eventually sold over twenty million copies worldwide.  






http://www.metallica.com/







'Fade To Black' gave rise to the power ballad.  Hammett reveals:   "'Fade to Black' was a song we had a good four to five months before recording. We had a lot of time to settle into it and get into the groove of it and get the arrangements down. That was a song that people accused us of selling out—that was the song we heard our first cries of sellout, which is pretty funny. It was the beginning of a long chorus of people screaming "sellouts." Every time we've put out an album, there's a contingency of people who aren't satisfied. What can you do? You can't drive yourself crazy to please a small pocket of people. You have to do what you do, what goes best, what feels like the right thing to do. We follow our gut instincts, and sometimes that instinct lands us in pretty weird spots. For us, it's all part of the journey."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3EryN4stwQ







'Ride The Lightning'
full album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yRpysQxRxE



00:00 Fight Fire With Fire
4:44 Ride The Lightning
11:20 For Whom The Bell Tolls
16:20 Fade To Black
23:07 Trapped Under Ice
27:07 Escape
31:25 Creeping Death
38:00 The Call Of Ktulu


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhT0g9jULpw

...and justice for all

Metallica broke into the mainstream with the socially conscious concerns of this progressive metal juggernaut.  The band had steadily built a reputation for an uncompromising thrash metal onslaught with their first three albums:  'Kill 'Em All', 'Ride the Lightning', and 'Master of Puppets'.   During a European leg of their Damage, Inc. tour, the band's tour bus lost control and flipped over, killing their bassist Cliff Burton.  The remaining members of the band eventually decided to carry on and auditioned over forty bassists to find a replacement, finally deciding on Jason Newsted from Flotsam and Jetsam. The group quickly recorded a bunch of covers to test the waters with their new bass player and released it as 'The $5.98 E.P.: Garage Days Re-Revisited'.   

They settled in at One on One Recording Studios in North Hollywood to record '...And Justice For All' with Mike Clink, who had produced Guns N' Roses' 'Appetite for Destruction'.    The band was unhappy with the sound they were getting and convinced Flemming Rasmussen, who had co-produced their two previous records to take over for Clink.  The album features Kirk Hammet on lead guitar; James Hetfield on lead vocals and rhythm guitar; Jason Newsted on bass; and Lars Ulrich on drums.  

Hetfield remembers:    "That album, songwriting-wise, it was just us really showing off and trying to show what we could do.  'We've jammed six riffs into one song? Let's make it eight. Let's go crazy with it.' I listen to some of that stuff, and it's pretty progressive. Sonically, it has its shortcomings, but that is the one where we were able to step forward from 'Puppets', and we were out on the road a lot during that record. That's when we first had major stage shows, with pyro and things falling, and that's when we started to get into more of the theatrics...We mixed that record while we were on the road. That's not an excuse for the way that it sounds, but our ears were beat. Anywhere I go, whenever I ask someone what their favorite record is, someone's bound to say 'Justice'. It's pretty great that, across the line, someone can jump into your history and feel comfortable."

Ulrich considers:     "'Justice' obviously was a huge record for us. ... We took the 'Ride the Lightning' and 'Master of Puppets' concept as far as we could take it.  There was no place else to go with the progressive, nutty, sideways side of Metallica, and I'm so proud of the fact that, in some way, that album is kind of the epitome of that progressive side of us up through the '80s...It's aged quite well.  There's a certain kind of specific sound to that record, peculiar sound — whichever adverb you want to choose — that's given it a kind of life of its own and a little bit of a vibe all its own. There have been a lot of great musicians we admire who've come up and talked about what a great inspiration that album has been to them and to their sound. It's obviously awesome to be part of that. That album also sent us on this whole other merry way, because when we came back from touring on that record in 1989, we were like, 'We have nothing more to offer on this side of Metallica,' and that set us off on some other adventures. When I think of the nine records we've put out, it's impossible for me to think of the music without thinking of the experience. And when I think of the experience, I have warm and fuzzy feelings, but I also have questions. Obviously, 'Justice' is well-revered, especially among a lot of our peers."

 With no radio play, '...And Justice For All' became the first underground metal album to break in the US.  It made it to number thirty-six in New Zealand, sixteen in Australia, thirteen in Canada, eight in Finland and Norway, seven in Switzerland, six in the US, five in Germany and Sweden, and number four in the UK.  The album was certified platinum within nine weeks and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance.  It has since been certified eight times platinum.  





http://www.metallica.com/









'...And Justice For All' 
full album:



1. "Blackened"   James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Jason Newsted 6:41
2. "...And Justice for All"  Hetfield, Ulrich, Kirk Hammett 9:46
3. "Eye of the Beholder"  Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett 6:30
4. "One"   Hetfield, Ulrich 7:27
5. "The Shortest Straw"   Hetfield, Ulrich 6:35
6. "Harvester of Sorrow"  Hetfield, Ulrich 5:45
7. "The Frayed Ends of Sanity"  Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett 7:44
8. "To Live Is to Die" (Instrumental) Hetfield, Ulrich, Cliff Burton 9:48
9. "Dyers Eve"  Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett 5:13