Ride the Lightning - Metallica (Cassette 1987)

There was a day, long ago, when proclaiming oneself a Metallica fan meant something. That something was not "I enjoy listening to redneck 40-somethings sing about cars and other vague topics atop a mushy half-metal, half-alternative backdrop." Quite to the contrary -- listening to Metallica's first four (debatably, five) albums and calling yourself a fan was saying "I like my music loud, fast and smart, my message clear, and my commentary sharp." And, as far as commentary goes, no album better exemplifies this statement than Ride the Lightning.

Two of Metallica's best anti-war songs hold prominent positions on this record. The opener, "Fight Fire With Fire," starts with a slick 30-second acoustic intro before exploding into an instant thrash classic, with Lars Ulrich's drum work girding together a furious tune about nuclear escalation and warfare. "Blow the universe into nothingness / Nuclear warfare shall lay us to rest," growls vocalist James Hetfield in his older, more powerful thrash styling, before the song escalates into cries of "Fight fire with fire!" and slams closed with the spine-chilling sound of a nuclear blast. It's difficult to envision a single track making its point more soberingly, and yet the band somehow does just that with "For Whom The Bell Tolls." Stealing its title from classic Hemingway, this track more artistically captures the human dimension of armed conflict.

"For a hill, men would kill -- why?
They do not know
Stiffened wounds test their pride
Men of five, still alive through the raging glow
Gone insane from the pain that they surely know."

The track is less thrash that anything else on the album, and the deep, tolling bells give it a doubly haunting effect, creating a track that more acutely combines the emotional and political than most could ever manage. The remainder of the album's commentary is found in "Ride The Lightning," a vehemently anti-death penalty song that's about as thrash as the album gets, with a blood-pumping bas guitar and exhilirating lead/solo guitar work. "Who made you God to say 'I'll take your life from you?'" questions Hetfield here.

The rest of the album, while it's nowhere near as socially relevant as the introductory tracks, is nonetheless classic Metallica. "Fade To Black" is one of the most touching personal tracks the band has ever written, smoothly incorporating an acoustic introduction and elevating its intensity very gradually over the course of seven minutes. "No one but me can save myself, but it's too late / Now I can't think why I should even try," intones Hetfield at the song's crescendo. "Creeping Death" is one of the band's best-known early songs (in an act of unforgivable bastardization, Christian ska band The Supertones even stole the track's slamming opening riff). Sung from the perspective of the tenth plague unleashed on the Egyptians in the time of Israel's captivity, the death of each firstborn son, the track is at once aggressive, dark, and strangely invigorating. The album closes on the beautful nine-minute instrumental "The Call of Ktulu," which was later rehashed even more amazingly on the band's orchestral collaboration S & M. The track's leads and solos move in and out of slow and fast, heavy and soft, quiet and loud sections seamlessly.

Ride the Lightning is one of Metallica's three most important works from the days when the band still had flair, originality and intelligence, and it is widely regarded as such for good reason. The album's constant blend of commentary, passion, and unparallelled songwriting is unmistakably potent. This is an album for thrash-metal fans, no question, and does not have the mainstream appeal of the band's more musically bland later works, but it still has an unmitigated power to anyone willing to hear it, and the fact that it has important messages about the world we live in renders it all the more potent. If for no other reason, Ride the Lightning's first three tracks make it a timeless experience.





This review is dedicated to the American troops, Iraqi troops and Iraqi civilians facing harm as it is written. May hostilities end quickly, and may the bells of war toll less often.