Kill Em

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So, what deep, harrowing topics does the songwriting on Kill 'Em All cover? life in the fast lane, and...more life in the fast lane, mostly. Just about every song is about how great it is to live fast, or how great it is to be Metallica, or just how great thrash metal is. And in the end, isn't that the noblest of causes? Your computer may be infected with malware or spyware that makes automated requests to our server and causes problems. Overall, an amazing album. The first full length thrash metal album and it kills. Buy this right now if you don’t already own it. Obviously, the most important thing of this album is the guitar work. The riffs are the meat of Kill'em All, and there's a lot of good ones here. Almost every tune has a memorable main riff or an interesting solo, which is great. Phantom Lord is an authentic thrash monster, with its NWOBHM-influenced main riff; Motorbreath follows the same path and Whiplash also contains some of the most aggressive and inspired riff ever crafted by this american act. Obviously the riff progressions are very primitive and basic, but at this time they were just an amateur band so that's perfectly understadable. Still, some songs here contain some progressive elements, which is rather surprising. Take Four Horsemen, for instance. After the usual fast first section, we reach a tremendous breakdown, with a nice solo and clean guitar lines. This is what makes Metallica different; while the majority of the other acts were just focusing on the aggression and power of their music, Metallica tried something more elaborate and, dare I say?, intelligent with songs as the already mentioned Four Horsemen.

Mustaine has been mysteriously credited by a majority for decades, as the sole innovator for this album's concept, although if you listen to the early demos and then compare to the official release, it's no secret that the solos that Kirk fixed were his own, and it times even shared little to no similarities to what Dave was responsible for. To conclude, a classic album that is worth owning for historical influence , listening pleasure, and the simple but rather rad album artwork. It's not perfect but it's quite great.Of course, we can't review a Metallica album without speaking of Lars Ulrich. Lars' drumming here isn't anything to jizz about but it's consistent and flows well with the rhythm of the music, which is what it's supposed to do in the first place. That's the idea behind drumming. His style is basic and at times fast, showing the punk influence in every song. I think he would showcase his skills a lot more on the next couple of albums but here, he does what he's supposed to do. Regarding bassist Cliff Burton he does a good job on all the songs, Pulling Teeth of course being his instrumental masterpiece, which accompanied with Lars Ulrich's drums makes a good break from James and Kirk's thrashy madness. I once heard someone say Cliff plays bass as if he's a lead guitarist and I'd say that's true for this and Metallica's follow-up album Ride The Lightning. As always, it's a shame he died so young, but for what we do have on this record, it fulfills.

Now, we've gotten past the album cover and instrumentation, and the songwriting process is where people get divided. Yes, we all know about Dave Mustaine contributing to some of the songs on the album, and "Mechanix" being renamed "The Four Horsemen" after he was fired from the band, but some of the most CLASSIC metal lyrics are found on this album: In 1983, when this was unleashed upon the world, Metallica had already built up a huge reputation around the bay area. Word of mouth about the band was buzzing around various cities on the west coast as well. From the onset, it was hinted at that this band would become huge eventually. There were many bands in the same musically aggressive vein of Metallica, even from the same location in the States, who were out to disarm the glam/hair "metal" scene and wipe it off the map.. And this album was the first real blow to the glam scene, and the catalyst that would fuel an army of bands who would eventually develop the thrash metal tag that would contribute greatly to the death of anything glam-related. However, unlike nearly all of the rest of those bands who joined Metallica in glorious musical battle against these drag clowns giving the genre a bad name, Metallica were the first to go the full mile and actually record a studio album and drop the first nuke on glam country, instead of firing demo missiles left and right, which bands like Exodus were guilty of. Released in 1983, this is the album that placed Metallica on the map. It's where Metallica finally got their true style, as their previous demo "No Life 'til Leather" is where they experimented a bit with a variety of sounds. While much better thrash metal albums would come out years later, their debut album still holds up today. The outlier on this album is obviously Cliff's bass solo, dubbed "Anesthesia" (Pulling Teeth". Technically it's quite a display, but unfortunately it's too long for it's own good and there are only 2 sections that really provide a dynamic contrast, and that is helped along by the drums entering. Joey Demaio did a much better job a year before this album with his rendition of the William Tell Overture, which was probably technically more difficult than this song is as well, though obviously it wasn't original.On other hand, the lyrics here are hilarious. While not speaking about Satan and darkness and killing goats, their lyrical subjects were, hm, just laughable, really. Behold. The vocals add to the heaviness with James Hetfield going from whiny vocals reminiscent of the N.W.O.B.H.M. bands they adore and aspired to be like, to gruff and crude barks in the style of Cronos of Venom and Lemmy from Motorhead. Almost every song on this album has the two different styles displayed within the first 2 verses and chorus of each song. The vocals are very well delivered in general. Most phrasing feel comfortable and catchy. When people bought this album and dropped that needle on the record, ( or place the CD in the CD player or cassette in tape player. ) they heard a new form of metal which would later act as a major change to what we knew as heavy metal. That new form was known as thrash metal. Words can't describe how much this album has had an impact on heavy metal. This is what blew the minds of whoever bought and played this album for the first time. Metallica is a band I'm sure most who browse the metal archives know. Formed in 1981, they had a somewhat controversial early history, mainly due to lead guitarist Dave Mustaine's drinking problems, but nonetheless just 1 year after their first demo, they put out their first full length, Kill 'Em All. The drums are the one weak link in this principally perfect chain of instrumentals and vocals. Lars does a very basic job here. He doesn't add much to the band on this album. His drum work is fast but it is mainly regular N.W.O.B.H.M. drums on steroids, nothing really innovative here. He was just getting used to drums at this point, as the next 3 albums by Metallica have excellent drumming through out. There are no really big highlights for Lars on this album. Though he does a pretty good job at catchy drums on Whiplash.