#17 Metallica: Ride the Lightning
THE DREADED DERECHO! By now, most people between Chicago and the East Coast of the United States have heard the term Derecho. Like El Nino 15 or so years ago, this term didn't exist, until suddenly the media got a hold of it, and now, its everywhere. Apparently it explains the terrible thunderstorms that ravaged the Washington DC area last Friday night. Here in our community, it wasn't too bad. We didn't lose power, we didn't have any fallen trees, we didn't have any damage at all. Well, let me correct that...two of jalapeno plants were destroyed. One thing that accompanied this storm ripping through the region was a pretty impressive lightning display. It was the first sign of what was about to hit, the flash in the distance followed by the low rumble of thunder. Tonight, the same thing happened, on a much lower scale. Again, the lightning, was the first sign of what was about to arrive. Racing home from Wegman's to beat the storm I suddenly knew what album I was going to play tonight.
Metallica's "Ride the Lightning" was the second full release by the band and represented an album that displayed the bands growing songwriting talent. They were expanding their horizons, ballads, instrumentals, really really long songs. Wow, what an album...I haven't listened to it straight through in a while so this should be good.
Side one starts much like the distant thunderstorms. A low rumble of acoustic guitar and what sounds like harpsichord? "Fight Fire with Fire" may start slow, but it won't remain that way for long, soon the distortion is on. The song is very thrash; a rapid beat, fast strumming, and war inspired lyrics. Through the first verse and chorus the song uses stop/start metal touches and soon launches to the solo. The solo shows off Kirk Hammet at his fastest and pauses for a quick double bass fill by Lars. A little bit of harmonized soloing comes at us before another double bass fill. Wow...this song is hard to type about. Its moving forward a lot faster than I can analyze this. Will this require two listenings to get everything? Probably....I would recommend multiple listenings. The song ends with an armageddon like explosion and its on to the title track. "Ride the Lightning" starts with a very urgent sounding guitar riff. On to the verse it continues the palm muted strumming with a few full chords for accent that is seen everywhere in thrash metal. The vocals use a very high first line before falling into the regular tone of the song. The pre-chorus is a great descending riff that follows Hetfield's vocals. The bridge is a slower paced chord driven riff that develops into the solo. The solo again uses fast tapping, sliding power chords and eventually painfully high bends to the upper reaches of the fretboard. Hammet's style of soloing is easy to spot...he's not as fast as Dave Mustaine, but he has a distinct style that works well in Metallica's writing. The solo concludes with another descending riff of tapping fury with double bass that rolls on through the rest of the song. Another chorus, leads quickly to another breakdown of speed and a slow chugging guitar riff which just sets up for the final assault. One more verse over the breakdown and its onto yet another chorus. A quick flashback to the beginning riff and the song suddenly concludes. Next its the epic: "For Whom the Bell Tolls." After the said bells toll a few times the song uses a couple big power chords and booming toms before a great guitar riff. WRONG! That's no moon, its a space station. I mean...that's no guitar, that's a bass with a fuzz pedal and wah. Cliff Burton basically invented this style, others may have done it first, but he did it best. Onto the main structure of the song with a very evil carnival sounding guitar riff to set the mood. The verse arrives with the power chord main riff continuing. The chorus uses more monster chords before another evil carnival comes to town. The riff this times takes on several keys over the backing chord progression. This eventually leads to another verse. The drum fills show up between lines and help to punctuate the over all sinister machine feel of the song. The song then goes to a breakdown with the bells tolling, and they do in fact toll for thee. The outro of the song feels like the final soundtrack of a man being sent to the electric chair. Ride the lighting indeed. The first side concludes with the first Metallica ballad, "Fade to Black." The song begins with a beautifully structured acoustic guitar playing on generally B and A with a highly smooth distorted solo over the top. Eventually the acoustic plays the main verse riff which uses arpeggio like chord playing. The lyrics are all about a man contemplating suicide...not a very nice subject for a song, unless you're Metallica. After the first taste of the loud rage that settles in later, the song goes to a harmonized solo using the same angelic voicing from the intro. The lyrics start to get darker and the song heavier, we're now into the second pre-chorus and the riffing is about to unleash the conclusion of the song on us. Looks like the hotline isn't gonna get here in time. The guitars soon take over with a great concluding riff and Hetfield's lyrics seem to just give up all hope. If you only learn one Metallica riff on the guitars, its gotta be the chorus thrash of this one. The outro of the song takes a still dark, but somewhat more laid back attack on the same chord progression as is seen throughout. This time the soloing tone is a little heavier, and a little more ragged. The playing becomes fast for the solo and for the drums which start rolling double bass drums. The song very appropriately concludes with a slow fade to silence and the sound of my turntable arm returning to rest.
Side two starts with something pretty terrifying, "Trapped Under Ice." I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty awful. Fortunately for us, its summer time, and as a song, being trapped under ice sounds pretty awesome. After the ballad that ended the first side, the thrash returns with maybe the fastest song on the album. This song is just a lesson in riffing and gives something for every guitar player to work on. The chorus is simple but effective, hitting several chords in fairly rapid succession. The solo is more blinding speed up and down the frets before the next verse comes in so very quick. You know, at this speed how can anyone spend time analyzing lyrics?! The song suddenly concludes and finally you can pump the breaks a little bit as we get to "Escape," a slower song (for Metallica). This once again uses palm muted heavy strumming which creates a chunky sound. Ask any guitar player, they'll tell you chunky is good for metal. The chorus of the song offers a great riff which follows the melody of the lyrics, great interplay between Hammett and Hetfield. After the first verse/chorus combo the song repeats again then arrives at a bridge. The bridge uses a slow grinding riff that doesn't sound very Metallica. Its still good, just not what I would expect from them...hmm, actually, maybe Pantera listened to this song a lot at a young age. That could explain some things. The outro features more steady Hetfield rhythm, Hammett imitating vocals on the guitar, and an air raid siren. Yeah thanks, the album wasn't creepy enough. Not a bad song...but on this album? I'm not too sure. Next up is "Creeping Death." A song that starts on start/stop dynamics with guitar and drums and then reaches its main riff via a trip down the toms on the drum-set. Now we're back in the Metallica groove with this one. Insert your own sentence with the word 'riff' here. More power chords sliding all around on the chorus and we're back into another verse. In 1984, Metallica knew what their fans wanted, and they are giving them a full helping of early 80's thrash on this album. The only other interesting point of "Creeping Death," is the doubled lyrics on the chorus. Listen for it...that evil sounding deeper tone voice in the background...Cliff Burton? Hetfield doubling himself? I'm not sure, but it sounds really cool. The album concludes with an amazing instrumental that clocks in at almost nine minutes, "The Call of Ktulu." The song credits feature the last mention of Dave Mustaine as a songwriter in Metallica. We would miss Dave in Metallica, but, not really... he gave us Megadeth and for that, we thank him. Using an arpeggio beginning and some very intense minor chords it uses clean tone to build up before the rest of the band slowly joins in. After the slow build concludes it finally kicks in and starts immediately kicking ass. Burton's bass again uses the wah and filter to sound like it coming straight from an awful place of no return. Like the later released "Orion," Burton's solo demonstrates that sometimes, four strings is all you need. I've recently been learning this on guitar and its really not a structurally complex song, its fairly straight forward. After a few runs through the basic setup of the song we get to a great breakdown. Climbing from Em to Gm the rhythm and lead guitars tangle together before cranking the whole thing up to Gm to Cm. Now Hammett starts the soloing and flies through every inch of the neck of the guitar...leaving no fret untouched. The song continues to mix the various riffs and patterns randomly before a final climb to a sudden pause, and return to the opening riff. After a couple bars of this, it finally hits the epic ending of hard sudden chords with loud cymbals, loud drums, loud everything. I know what you're thinking, Metallica should do more instrumentals. Don't worry, they will on other albums, and they will be equally as awesome.
"Ride the Lightning" is a strong reminder of what Cliff Burton brought to the first three Metallica albums. Its hard to imagine what the Black album would've been like if Cliff were still alive. His innovative approach to not only playing the bass, but tone and effects really gave Metallica options other bands did not have: a bass player that could solo.
Strongest Song: Call of Ktulu
Weakest Song: Escape
Song You Know: Fade to Black, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Why You Might Hate It: You're never in a hurry and like to take things slow.
Buy
It? A great vinyl find. Should be around used since it was released in the era of vinyl/cassette.
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