CREEPING DEATH

"Creeping Death" is an EP/ maxi single release by US thrash metal act Metallica. The original vinyl release from 1984 had the title track on Side 1 and the two cover tunes "Am i Evil?" by Diamond Head and "Blitzkrieg" by Blitzkrieg on Side 2. The title track comes from Metallica´s second album "Ride The Lightning (1984)" which had been released earlier that year while the two cover tunes where recorded during the Garage Days revisited sessions. The EP/ maxi single is also featured in "The Good, The Bad and The Live (1990") EP/ maxi single box-set and the two cover tunes are also featured on the "Garage Inc. (1998)" cover tunes compilation album.

"Creeping Death" is to be considered one of the classic releases by Metallica. In those days before CD bonus tracks and extras, EPs and maxi singles were considered something special. "Creeping Death" is a high quality thrash metal song and one of the better tracks on "Ride The Lightning" but it´s of course the two cover songs that made this a worthwile purchase back then. "Am i Evil?" is a song that Metallica have played numourous times at their concerts and their version is probably better known than the original these days. Maybe the best example of how Metallica have always been able to make cover tunes their own. "Blitzkrieg" is a pretty good cover song too but not on par with "Am i Evil?".

Today this is more a collector´s item than anything. Most of all because of the more easy availability of the two cover tunes on "Garage Inc.". I´ll rate the "Creeping Death" EP for its quality though and a 3.5 - 4 star rating is deserved.

Metallica's 'Creeping Death/Jump in the Fire' EP, combining two singles/EP's on one disk, is a nice little collectable for die-hard Metallica fans, although being difficult to find nowadays. it's not really worth the effort, especially since the bulk of the songs (or should that be "the most important ones") are more easily available elsewhere.

The title track is arguably one of the best tracks from the 'Ride the Lightning' album, and the two accompanying covers are good, but again, are easier to obtain on other releases, namely, the 1998 album 'Garage Inc.', which collects every cover Metallica had recorded up to that point along with new ones recorded specifically for that album. The two songs in question are 'Blitzkrieg', originally by the band Blitzkrieg (who?) and 'Am I Evil', by Diamond Head (who... ah, never mind), a song Metallica have covered so well and so often that it has more-or-less become their own.

Unfortunately it's the "second half" of this EP that ruins it for me, the 'Jump in the Fire' section, which consists of the aforementioned song and two live cuts.

Whilst I like the album 'Kill 'Em All', I don't consider 'Jump in the Fire' to be an overly memorable song, and the two "live tracks" (rumoured to be normal tracks with crowd noises dubbed in) sound awful by the standards of todays live albums, whether the dubbed-in crowd story is true or not.

Overall this is a cool addition to the collection if you love Metallica and look to own everything, but since this can be pretty tricky to find anyway, it's really not worth the effort.