RIDE THE LIGHTNING

Metallica's sophomore album "Ride the Lighting" is a step in the right direction for the band. Apart from the fast , typical thrash metal numbers they were used to create The band also show us a new aspect of their music which can be consider "proto prog metal"

The record opens with a really fast and agressive tune called Fight Fire with Fire. As usual with this band , I will say that Jame's riffs stole the show here. There are also some really fast bass lines and interplay between James and Cliff. Kirk's lead guitar is somewhat average in this song. The title track is much better , since it features longer instrumental sections like the ones found it the " Kill 'em All " album there is some soloing around the 2:30 minutes and one of my favourite Kirk solos of all time at 4 minutes. Lars drumming is typical thrash metal style much like early Kreator records.

For Whom the bell's tolls is one of the most progressive songs on this record and a live favourite of the band. This song has some twin guitar melodies in it's introduction pretty much like Thin Lizzy and it's probably the best Lars perfomance on this album. Next , we ll face a highlight on this album. The clear proof that Metallica evolved quite a lot from Kill em all to this point. Fade to black is a really inpressive song that includes an acoustic intro and good guitar lines by Kirk ( the outro to this song is one of the best moments this album has to offer)

Unluckily , the second side of Ride the Lighting is not a strong as the first one. Trapped under Ice and Escape are some of the lowest points in Metallica's 80's period ( Although they are masterpieces compared to the ones in the Bob Rock era). It's no wonder that the band rarely played them on stage. However there is an improvement with the early classic "Creeping Death" This song works for me in the same way some Powerslave tunes do , there is some Egyptian sounding and epic feeling on this tune although it's really fast and riff -based. The album closes with the lenghthy instrumental " The call of Ktulu". While this shows that the band is expanding their musical horizons , it does not work that well for me. Specially if we compare this song with better instrumentals like " Orion" or " To live is to die" those songs had multiple sections and abrupt changes , while Ktulu always bases around the same riffs and drumming style.

In my opinion , this record is a very interesting one. It's a pity that the sound quality is average and that there were some uninspired songs among other great numbers.