Metallica's Reviews
Ride The Lightning (Average Rating: 9.50 out of 10)
Great Album (Rated this album with 10 out of 10)
Reviewed by
joe shmoe
from San Francisco, CA
The first album I think of when I think of 80's Metallica is Ride the Lightning. The title track and Fade to Black were the first metal songs I heard, way back in 7th grade, and, after listening those to songs for a while I bought the album. Then i got attached to Master of Puppets, and after that ...And Justice for All, and then i stopped listening to Metallica for a while. I listened to Sabbath and Zepplin for a while, then I switched to some Bob Marley, and then some Hendrix, Stones, et al. Finally, after 2-3 years I have picked up listening to the three aforementioned Metallica albums, and, after listening to a considerable amount of all three, I decided that this was my favorite Metallica album. But then, on another day, I felt like listening to the harmonized bridge of Blackened from AJFA. And later I was obsessed with the crunch of Disposable Heroes from Master of Puppets. But even after all of that hedging from album to album, I still think that RTL is the most easy to listen to, if not the best metallica album.While Master of Puppets and ...And Justice for all are both excellent in their own right, I occasionally tend to feel hesitant about putting them on on a given day. With Ride the Lightning, this is not the case. Everything about this album is so amazing, from the frenetic riffage from "Creeping Death" to the epic, Uli Roth/Randy Rhoads-ish soloing on "Ride the Lightning," to the incredible harmonized bridge right before the last solo section on "Fade to Black." Whenever I hear that part I turn up the volume and tell everyone else in the room to shut up so they can revel in the glory that is the interplay between guitars. With no other Metallica album can I do that. The other two ballads, "One" and "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)", from the other two albums, while exceptional, for me, don't encapsulate the beauty of life as well as "Fade to Black" does. I don't know if it's just me, but I just feel incredible when I hear that song and I feel good about life. Well, I'm babbling now, but other high points are "For whom the Bell Tolls" and the instrumentation on "Call of Ktulu". That song truly displays the instrumentational prowess of Metallica, and the ability of conceiving one album of RTL's scope, let alone two others, is something reserved for a select few. As one had said earlier, this album is one that can be appreciated by all music lovers, not just Heavy Metal fans. Buy Ride the Lightning to experience something of immense power and beauty. Some other albums to consider, for those who are just getting into underground 80s metal, are "Rust in Peace" and "Peace sells...but who's buying" by Megadeth, "Hell Awaits"/"Reign in Blood"/"South of Heaven" by Slayer, "The Legacy" by Testament, or Sepultura's first album.
Buy this album on Amazon at $13.99
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