Years

From

Styles

• Thrash Metal

Members

• James Hetfield
  vocals, guitar
• Kirk Hammett
  guitar
• Lars Ulrich
  drums
• Robert Trujillo
  bass

Former Members

• Jason Newsted
  bass
• Cliff Burton
• bass

                                            Kill 'Em All  A

1	Hit the Lights
2	The Four Horsemen
3	Motorbreath
4	Jump in the Fire
5	(Anesthesia) - Pulling Teeth
6	Whiplash
7	Phantom Lord
8	No Remorse
9	Seek & Destroy
10	Metal Militia

This was recorded when they were very young.Just look at the photo of them on the  inside cover.Kids.The whole album is a thrash riff fest,without any sort of let up,dammit.It goes on and on and......not that I am complaining.They just rock all out,pulling out all stops.Quite an endless reservoir of energy.The songs are not as good as they would become later on,during the course of the next three albums but still this is quite a listen .Cliff Burton is on the bass,i think the chap died some time later after this was released.Anesthesia is a fuzzy solo  carried out for quite a long time before Ulrich comes on with the drums.That's the only sort of stopping time,otherwise we have thrashers spread all over the album.Special mentions include The Four Horsemen,Jump In the fire,No Remorse etc...........The whole album is just the basic foundation for what is going to come,though in itself a classic.

Oh yeah ,the lyrics are hilarious .The most famous line goes like "Hell bent for leather......"Got it?They are clearly out for fun ,quite a lot of distance from songs like "Nothing Else Matters" .

                              Ride The Lightning   A

Released:	July 7th, 1984
Studio/Live?:	Studio

1	Fight Fire With Fire
2	Ride the Lightning
3	For Whom the Bell Tolls
4	Fade to Black
5	Trapped Under Ice
6	Escape
7	Creeping Death
8	The Call of Ktulu

It’s evolution ,baby.Metallica evolves!People looking for the thrash of the previous album won’t be dissapointed.People looking for better riffs and solos would  be happy too.The tone of the album is heavier.Kill ‘em All was thrash allright but the tone and feel was  light  even when Hetfield was singing “Seeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaarchhiiiiiiiing ………….SEEK AND DESTROY!!!!”.Just look  at the wonderful intros of every song.The songs follow a very similar structure and   have a much more complex feel to it.This is Metallica at their near best.They reached the peak………..they stayed at the peak for 2 more albums(if you forget the Garage Ep).The songs are slower(not by much though) than before except for the opener and the title track,but what the heck  all songs are excellent,I gurantee you.A much more satisfying listen than Kill ‘em All,for me at least.

Oh yeah there is another thing I would like to take up.My friend said to me”You don’t give the history of the band,you don’t talk about how the album in question came about”.

I would like to say that in my reviews I would never like to talk about the history of the band  though sometimes I might talk about lineup changes where they are noticeable(I won’t talk about lineup changes in later Black Sabbath albums except that Ozzy left after Never say Die and Dio and after that Gillan came in.)If I ever review Motorhead and if Lemmy left the band I will mention it though,'cause there won’t be any Motorhead  without him.

To ‘cut the crap’ as The Clash said  I will only give history where I think it affected the band sound.(I don’t really know why I wrote the above para but I did so it stays.I don’t edit anything I write).

Master of Puppets   A+ 1 Battery 2 Master of Puppets 3 The Thing That Should Not Be 4 Welcome Home (Sanitarium) 5 Disposable Heroes 6 Leper Messiah 7 Orion Damage, Inc. Awesome ALBUM! ........... ............ ................ ...................... .................................................................... All right, I suppose more could be said  about this album. It continues on the same rules that Ride The Lightning laid out.For example the all out thrash fest opener Battery with the acoustic intro.(The equivalent of Fight Fire with Fire).The ballad Welcome Home(Sanitarium),which I like more than Fade To Black.(And I absolutely love Fade To Black you know).Then the looooooong instrumental Orion which I like more than The Call Of The Ktulu.(And let me tell you Call...  just blew me away.).Then there is that title track with the slow,beautiful part in between. And if all that wasn't enough there are your Disposable Heroes,Leper Messiahs,Damage Inc's  that plod along pleasantly. All right I guess "plod"  isn't quite the right adjective for describing any of the songs on this album,not unless you are a guy  who just listens  to "Brutal Metal Gore " albums  where the   longest album is about ummmm.....about 25 minutes long.Metallica's not about being loud.Not at this point of time in their careers, that is. Best song...did somebody ask?(All right I asked myself but sometimes it is fun to dream that somebody is reading all this shit.One can afford to dream ,can't one?) Can't say would be the answer to that question.All are "Best" songs infact.So I guess you should just buy the whole thing.(Or if you are using BitTorrent  you can go to the site www.torrentazos.com.  Pretty easy to download any Metallica album from there if you have a bittorrent client like Shareaza for example.Good speeds.Better than downloading directly from your p2p client.There you go.The tip of the Day.) The A+ goes to this one rather than Ride The LIghtning because this is a richer listening experience.The melodies and riffs are even more good and formed, so to speak.