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Ride the Lightning

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Untitled
For the album by M Coast, formerly Marshmallow Coast, see Ride the Lightning.

Ride the Lightning is Metallica's second album, released November 16, 1984 on Elektra Records

Impact and Acclaim

Ride the Lightning is often hailed by fans [1] as a classic of the thrash metal genre, and a vital bridge between the band's albums, Kill 'Em All and Master Of Puppets, pushing the thrash metal of the debut into progressive territory more fully-realised on Master of Puppets and ...And Justice for All.

Ride the Lightning retains the furious speed of Kill 'Em All on songs like "Trapped Under Ice", but also contains longer, more symphonically arranged tracks such as the 9-minute closing instrumental "The Call of Ktulu".

Ride the Lightning is considered the first of the "unofficial trilogy" of Metallica albums that show obvious similarities in concept. The "trilogy" is considered instrumental in making metal more serious and focused on real issues, and are Metallica's most respected works. More connections are detailed below.

Ride the Lightning was listed at number 3 in a list compiled by metal-rules.com of a list of the Top 100 Metal Albums of All Time. [2]

Concept

As is the case with Master of Puppets and ...And Justice for All, Ride the Lightning is partly conceptual; the tracks don't follow a story but they all deal with the same theme, in this case death. For example, Fade to Black is about suicide[3], "Fight Fire With Fire" is a commentary on nuclear warfare, "Ride the Lightning" is about the electric chair, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is about dying in a war and is based on the Ernest Hemingway book by the same name. "Trapped Under Ice" is a first person narrative of the horror experienced by someone awakening while still frozen and unattended in a cryonic state."Creeping Death" details the plagues of the Bible. The electric chair pictured on the cover of the album is the Virginia electric chair. [citation needed]

Controversy

With increased critical and commercial attention for the album, the band received their first accusations of "selling out", because of the slow subdued vibe of songs like "Fade to Black", although many more fans argue that the diversifying of sound shown on Ride the Lightning helped to make Metallica such an important band to the genre. These accusations were certainly nowhere near the magnitude of claims the band would face over their 1991 album Metallica, 1996 album Load, or their 2003 album St. Anger.

Track listing

  1. "Fight Fire With Fire" (Burton, Hetfield, Ulrich) – 4:45
  2. "Ride The Lightning" (Burton, Hetfield, Mustaine, Ulrich) – 6:41
  3. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (Burton, Hetfield, Ulrich) – 5:09
  4. "Fade to Black" (Burton, Hammett, Hetfield, Ulrich) – 6:59
  5. "Trapped Under Ice" (Hammett, Hetfield, Ulrich) – 4:08
  6. "Escape" (Hammett, Hetfield, Ulrich) – 4:24
  7. "Creeping Death" (Burton, Hammett, Hetfield, Ulrich) – 6:35
  8. "The Call of Ktulu" (Burton, Hetfield, Mustaine, Ulrich) – 8:55

Credits

Singles

"Fade to Black" was released as a promo in 1984.

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" was released as a promo single, with two versions of the song, an edited version on side A, and the album version on side B.

The flipside to "Creeping Death" was the original "Garage Days Revisited", featuring "Am I Evil?" (Diamond Head) and "Blitzkrieg" (Blitzkrieg).

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