Album of the Week #4 - Metallica - Ride The Lightning

Karl Hungus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G63YItfPDG4

Absolute classic thrash album. Personally, I prefer Master Of Puppets, but there's no denying Ride The Lightning is an absolutely blistering album aswell.

GhostInTheRuins

My favourite Metallica album. One of the first (Metal) albums I bought and one that really got me into metal. Christ it's been years since I've listened to this.

Léan

Yuuusss!!
Fantastic classic thrash album! Woop

cournioni

Reasonable enough album. Wouldn't say its a classic really as there is only three or four good songs on it. Love the title song, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Fade To Black and Kthulu. Creeping Death is ok, the rest are meh.

It wasn't me!

A stonking album. Has something Puppets doesn't, in my opinion. That said, I prefer Puppets, but this album has something unique in it.

Malice

I am delighted this won. Appetite last week and now this one. Ride The Lightning is one of my favourite albums of all time. I remember hearing this first when a friend played me a dodgy taped version. He told me I had to hear this album and then proceeded to put on "Fight Fire with Fire". I was most definitely underwhelmed by the acoustic guitar intro but I think my jaw hit the floor when I heard what came next! I don't think I'd ever heard guitars played so fast. That was it for me, I had been chosen as a devotee by the Metal gods

Love the title song, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Fade To Black and Kthulu. Creeping Death is ok, the rest are meh.

"The rest" is just two songs - Escape and Trapped Under Ice. Both of these are solid songs in their own right but I suppose they aren't quite up to the standards set by the rest of the album. I think they work well in the context of the album as a whole as they set the scene nicely for the evil-sounding instrumental - Call of Ktulu. The title track, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Creeping Death and Fade to Black are absolutely timeless classics. I will always like Fight Fire With Fire just for the intro alone even if the rest of the song is a bit limited in comparison.
Anyway, it's an absolute masterpiece of an album. No self-respecting metal fan should be without this in their collection. Forget the Metallica of the 90s onwards, this was them at their best!

CarefulNow

Great album but I prefer Master of Puppets.

Schism

Top notch album alright, prefer this to puppets but ...And Justice For All tops the two of them for me. :eek:

Ph3n0m

First Metallica album I bought, listened to...and the one that I will play more then any other Metallica album

Malice

CarefulNow wrote:

Great album but I prefer Master of Puppets.

Any particular reason why?

Earthworm Jim! wrote:

Top notch album alright, prefer this to puppets but ...And Justice For All tops the two of them for me. :eek:

Now this one I don't understand, the sound on Justice For All is terrible. Does the complete lack of bass tone and the horrible squelchy drums not annoy you?

buck65

Ride the lightning - classic, remember when this came out my cousin from the US brought it over and I listened to it and absolutely loved it and it got me into metal in a big way. Puppets was probably a better produced and slicker release but for sheer attitiude this was the one , a massive forward step after the well dodgy Kill em All.

senordingdong

Classic album indeed.
Opens up well and just keeps on ploughing through you.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

awesome album, and whoever it was that was talking smack about AJFA... stop it

stop it, now.

Mushy

Surprised this won...hadnt looked at voting lately. But what can I say?

Most definately a classic album, my favourite Metallica album by a bit. Actually like all the songs on it, easy to listen to. Remember buying it for my bbrother for his birthday, I didnt know who Metallica were really(I wsa in my pop-years ya know, Eiffel 65 that crap). Little did I know I'd grow to love this album and it be one of my favourites. FFWF is brilliant, and it gets better as the album moves on. Loved hearing RTL(song) this year.

Sephiroth_dude

great album,first metallica album i got.Timeless classic,And justice for all is a classic too as is master of puppets and kill em all!:cool: i love them four albums

Degag

malice_ wrote:

Any particular reason why?
Now this one I don't understand, the sound on Justice For All is terrible. Does the complete lack of bass tone and the horrible squelchy drums not annoy you?

I actually like the sound of the drums in this. I think it is by far their most technical album and the ulrich bashers should listen to it and realise that he was once a world class drummer whatever about his current capabilities.

Sephiroth_dude

Tackle69 wrote:

I actually like the sound of the drums in this. I think it is by far their most technical album and the ulrich bashers should listen to it and realise that he was once a world class drummer whatever about his current capabilities.

I agree with you there.The drums on that album are very technical and sound cool.

A Primal Nut

Great album - but I'll always prefer Master Of Puppets where almost every song is a classic. Still this album has three of my favourite songs ever (For Whom The Bell Tolls, Fade To Black and Creeping Death) and for them alone its a classic. Ride The Lightning is awesome too. Escape and Call of Ktulu are quite melodic and good songs but wouldn't call em classics. Fight Fire With Fire and Trapped Under Ice are pure trash metal but I don't consider them great songs.

Undergod

Got a taxi home the other night - the driver was playing this on the way. Best Taxt Driver Ever.

cournioni

malice_ wrote:

"The rest" is just two songs - Escape and Trapped Under Ice. Both of these are solid songs in their own right but I suppose they aren't quite up to the standards set by the rest of the album. I think they work well in the context of the album as a whole as they set the scene nicely for the evil-sounding instrumental - Call of Ktulu. The title track, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Creeping Death and Fade to Black are absolutely timeless classics. I will always like Fight Fire With Fire just for the intro alone even if the rest of the song is a bit limited in comparison.
Anyway, it's an absolute masterpiece of an album. No self-respecting metal fan should be without this in their collection. Forget the Metallica of the 90s onwards, this was them at their best!

Correction, the rest is three songs. Fight Fire With Fire is the other. Personally I think it is an over rated album from an over rated band.

The hype surrounding Metallica is just silly, they have a few good songs but nothing to put them on a par with the likes of Sabbath as alot of Metallica fans seem to think is the case.

mc nuggets

What an album. I'm never sure whether i prefer this or Master of Puppets, it really is close. MoP just edges ahead because its got Orion on it

Schism

malice_ wrote:

Any particular reason why?
Now this one I don't understand, the sound on Justice For All is terrible. Does the complete lack of bass tone and the horrible squelchy drums not annoy you?

Ye sure its different and not what you'd expect and at first it did annoy me but the quailty of the songs on this album is fantastic.

In my opinion if it was produced differently in the first place there would be a lot more people singing its praises now.

Malice

PORNAPSTER wrote:

Correction, the rest is three songs. Fight Fire With Fire is the other.

You're dead right, sorry about that. I must have gotten confused looking at the track listing. Either way, for the intro alone Fight Fire With Fire is a great song.

PORNAPSTER wrote:

Personally I think it is an over rated album from an over rated band. The hype surrounding Metallica is just silly, they have a few good songs but nothing to put them on a par with the likes of Sabbath as alot of Metallica fans seem to think is the case.

I for one wouldn't put Metallica anywhere near Black Sabbath. As far as I'm concerned Metallica's early stuff is legendary and puts them far above Black Sabbath.

buck65

Pornapster - very controversial, but you do make a good point. If you look at Metallica's back catalogue they have some fantastic songs 3 or 4 on RTL, most of Master, 4 from AJFA and maybe 3 from the next few albums at most.
So IMO they have maybe 20 great songs, that is probably still better than most metal bands but the hype is just waaaaay too much.
They have been abysmal since 1991, at least we have 3 great albums though, their music is formulaic now, much the pity.

Diarmuid

buck65 wrote:

They have been abysmal since 1991, at least we have 3 great albums though,

Just goes to show how great those 3 (to 5) albums were. Still the biggest metal act 20 years after their magnum opus

senordingdong

No way, Puppets is untouchable from start to finish.

Sephiroth_dude

Can't believe ye left out kill em all,thats a great thrash album!

Malice

buck65 wrote:

the hype is just waaaaay too much

You are the second poster to mention this and I have to ask. What hype are you talking about? If you're talking about the sense of anticipation in the run up to each time they release an album or the buzz of discussions each time it's announced they are in the studio that's not hype. That's their fans hoping for a return to form to the Metallica of the mid to late eighties.

Schism

buck65 wrote:

They have been abysmal since 1991, at least we have 3 great albums though, their music is formulaic now, much the pity.

Firstly I dont know if your including black in this since it was released in 1991. That's far from an abysmal album either way imo.

After that they haven't made anything with the same sound/tempo of their previous releases. Albums like Load and Reload aren't abysmal they're just not what people wanted to hear from metallica.

It wasn't me!

Earthworm Jim! wrote:

Albums like Load and Reload aren't abysmal

Ah, let's be honest now...

mc nuggets

It wasn't me! wrote:

Ah, let's be honest now...

At least they were better than St. Anger. Thats not saying much though is it