Ride the Lightning

Having just wrapped up my analysis of Kill Em All (see previous posts)...here's my live take on Ride the Lightning.  I'm typing as I listen and am fueled by dual propellants of Sam Adams Boston Lager and Corona Extra.  Extra what?  Piss taste.  Thanks to the lime farmer for helping mask the shitty taste of Corona.

Ride the Lighting is a concept album, not in the sense that it tells a story but in the sense that every song deals with death.   Kill Em All altered between tales of being a metal head and fantasy.  Nothing super creative...Metallica would continue with the concept albums for a while after this(master and justice).

Fight Fire With Fire....Opens as unexpectedly as Kill Em All...a  little classical ditty in the vein of Randy Rhodes's Dee.  Then all hell breaks loose and the fastest thrash blast comes your way.  Excruciatingly fast and pummelling.  Vocal pattern too elementary. But it would be almost impossible to play this rhythm and sing any sort of juxtapostioned lyric.  IMPOSSIBLE.  The music is brutal.  Nice little breakdown at about 230 and then all hell breaks loose again.  Kirk's soloing is solid.  Lars just blasts away at the snare.  Some nice double bass and some good syncopation between the bass and crash cymbal. 


Ride the Lightning...song starts off with sounds that remind the listener of electric jolts.  Chugging riff...nothing extraordinary.  James's vocals are still screechy like on Kill Em but there are bouts of melodic "singing".  Because the rhythm pattern in the last song was so intense, the vocal pattern suffered.  This song is the converse....the playing isn't as tough and the vocals are stronger.  Lars has some cool drumming on this one.  Interesting fills.  Some good off time stuff.  His signature interplay between the kick drum and snare is on display.

***The production on this album is much muddier and not as clear as Kill Em All.  The sound is more "metallic" but not in a good way.  Kill Em All sounds much better.  Everything blends together more and there's no separation of sounds even though they are better players on this....

For Whom the Bell Tolls...can't go wrong with Hemingway as source material.  If you haven't seen Silver Linings Playbook, see it.  There's a great Hemingway scene...and if you have read the book A Farewell to Arms, you'll get the joke immediately and get that Bradley Cooper's character isn't crazy at all...the world is fucking crazy. Take the connection deeper and you'll see the parllells between Hetfield's psyche and Hemingway's....
Epic song....just sludges on and builds momentum.  Great dirge like beat.  Cool riff...nice lead.  Drums carry this shit at the start.  This song has groove, heart, soul.  This song is not thrash.  This is where Metallica start to evolve.  The beginning of what would come.  They are developing.  This song is fucking monster.  Epic.  Saw them live at least 4 or 5 times.  This song is killer.  "Take a look at the sky just before you die, it's the last time you will, will, will, will, will" ....live that echo/delay is so good.  They extend the pause in the instrumentation....the pause is more powerful than the sound. 

Fade to Black...The first glimpse at the demons haunting James.  True artists share their suffering.  Hetfield is just starting here....there's a psychology thesis waiting to be written on the James Hetfield depression/anxiety/bipolar express.  Nice ballad arrangements...acoustic guitars and bouncy sentimental rhythms.  I can hear the doubters who were Kill Em All worshippers saying how they sold out..."Metallica's gay...a bunch of fags.  Fuck those douchebags."  Oh, whoops, there's the chorus.  It's thrash.  Wait,back to the verse...what the hell is happening????  Listen to the lyrics, Hetfield is bleeding on the page....this continues so much in the future.  Will try to throw something up in the future about this. The last 1/2 of this song just builds and blasts.  Good Judas Priest like harmonics....good leads...nice double bass by Lars.  Is Cliff on this album?  All guitar and bass drum.....So much mid range.  Whoever mixed this should have been (insert really bad thing here). 

Trapped Under Ice...out of control thrash.  Harsh vocals.  Another great expose' of James's psychosis.  Metaphorical depiction of a troubled soul.

"I don't know how to live trough this hell
Woken up, I'm still locked in this shell
Frozen soul, frozen down to the core
Break the ice, I can't take anymore

Freezing
Can't move at all
Screaming
Can't hear my call
I am dying to live
Cry out
I'm trapped under ice

Crystallized, as I lay here and rest
Eyes of glass stare directly at death
From deep sleep I have broken away
No one knows, no one hears what I say

Without going into it too much....it's about a guy who can't identify with anyone.  No one knows him.  He feels nothing....he's 'frozen."  He just wants to break free but doesn't know how...he's trapped....James would go into this territory again and again lyrically.  Fade to Black broke the ice of his emotional crises on display...it continues with Escape.  He just defies society...he wants to escape.  He's telling them "fuck you.  All I need is me."  I've heard James say this is his least favorite song.  It's sort of "poppy" with the hooks and all....at least "poppy" for Metallica.  About 230 in the song gets so heavy...sludge metal rules for about 10 seconds and that makes this song worthy of listening.  But the lyric "Life's for my own to live my own way" is fairly elementary.  It could've been said more eloquently...weak lyric.

Creeping Death....pummelling start.  Drums, chugging guitars....dancing rhythm....good accentuation and emphasis of the end of each measure with cymbal crashes.  This song crushes.  Good structure.  Reminds me of The Four Horsemen in the fine tuning of the song craft...no filler here boys and girls.  Everything is vital and necessary.  So let it be written ....so let it be done.  Another song live that just kills.  When Hetfield gets tens of thousands (or at the two Woodstock anniversary concerts hundreds of thousands) chanting "die, die, die, die, die" you'll immediately understand the dynamics of group identification. you'll understand mob mentality.  you'll understand Nazi Germany.  the power of numbers is a magnificent creature and to behold it in person is immensely shuddering.  

Album ends with The Call of Ktulu...hey, Cliff is on this album after all.  He gets some squeals and screeches out of that Rickenbacker.  Such a monumental monster of a song.  Great composition.  Foreshadows the classical influence on Justice.  It's sweeping.  Bach or Beethoven would've written this had they been alive in the 1980's. 

Feels good to be doing some writing again even though it's really trivial and meaningless....it keeps the hands and mind busy for a time and sometimes, that's all a man needs.  If you don't agree, go back to Trapped Under Ice and Escape....Hetfield would agree. Grade: B+