Ride the Lightning: the 40th Anniversary
The Blind Eternities forum
Posted on Jan. 28, 2024, 10:54 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
This year is the 40th anniversary of Ride the Lightning, Metallica's second album. Their first album, Kill 'em All, prominently displayed their worship of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, but this album demonstrated their growth and development as a band, in which they showed that they could play more than simply fast and furious riffs, as they displayed much greater depth and musicality on their sophomore effort. RtL is the first Metallica album on which guitarist Kirk Hammett is credited for songwriting, and he certainly made his presence known, as this album contains some of the band's best-known songs, including the blazing opener of Fight Fire with Fire, the electrifying titular track, the band's first ballad, Fade to Black, the dark and sinister closing track, The Call of Ktulu, and, of course, the all-time epic anthem Creeping Death, which is not only one of Metallica's best songs, but one of the best heavy metal songs ever written. I am hesitant to say that any song on the album is weak, but, if any song is, Escape is the one weak song on this album, as it simply does not match the rest of the album in terms of energy or musical intricacy, and the band dislikes that song so much that they actually have played it live only once, when they played Ride the Lightning in its entirety.
Ride the Lightning is definitely one of my favorite albums, both by Metallica and in all of heavy metal, and I still listen to it fairly regularly, so I definitely expect the band to do something to commemorate the album's anniversary, including playing songs from it live at their upcoming concert in August.
How does everyone else feel about this subject? What are your thoughts about this year being the 40th anniversary of Ride the Lightning?
DemonDragonJ says... #3
shadow63, it is interesting that you said that, because those are my two favorite albums by Metallica, as well!
shadow63 says... #2
It's got some good tracks but it's far from my favorite Metallica album. That'd probably be Master of Puppets or ...and Justice for All
January 31, 2024 8:37 a.m.