40 Years Later, Metallica’s Ride the Lightning Stands Tall as a Pillar of Thrash Metal Greatness

What a career Metallica have had. They were the tip of the spear for thrash metal as we know it, then went on to become one of the biggest and most successful rock bands in history. They endured the tragic and untimely loss of a friend and genuine virtuoso, bassist Cliff Burton, which many would argue permanently altered the course of their musical trajectory. They drastically changed their style and approach multiple times (to, shall we say, mixed reception), and in recent years have settled on something of a middle ground between the hectic and hungry spirit of their earlier works and the hard rock-oriented overall tone of the post-Load era. Say what you will about this band, but the fact is they could pack it all up and retire tomorrow and still go down as nothing short of living legends.

Like many a fledgling hesher, Metallica were my gateway into heavy metal when I was but an awkward pizza faced preteen, and I am extremely fortunate to say that they were also the first metal band that I ever got to see live. That was a long time ago, and sadly I have not been able to catch them again since, but it was still a formative and unforgettable experience for which I am eternally grateful. I don’t listen to them nearly as much as I used to back in the day, but they’ll always hold a special place in my heart, and every once in a while it’s good to go back and revisit the classics to remind yourself why you loved a band so much in the first place.

I’m of the opinion that everything these guys did from the self-titled back is solid gold (yes, the Black Album rules, let’s not fool ourselves), but there’s something really special about the 1984 juggernaut that is Ride the Lightning. For one thing, it’s arguably the heaviest and most genuinely aggressive album in their discography, largely thanks to Kirk and James’ monstrous guitar tone. The debate over which of their albums is the “best” will surely be eternal, and there are rock solid arguments to be made for any one of their earlier works, but for my money, when it comes to sheer heaviness, Lightning takes the cake. Songs like “Fight Fire with Fire”, “Trapped Under Ice”, and “Creeping Death” are positively frothing at the mouth, and even the slower songs like the iconic anthem “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and the supremely dark and depressing pseudo ballad “Fade to Black” have a thick, oppressive atmosphere to them.

However, it’s not all furious tremolo picking and rip-shit, face melting guitar solos, although there are plenty of both. Metallica have always had a certain penchant for songwriting, taking great care to ensure that each song sounds different from the rest and has its own instantly recognizable signature riffs, and this album is no different. There are a number of legendary moments on Ride the Lightning that remain a staple to this day. For example, all it takes is one ring of that ominous bell in “For Whom the Bell Tolls” to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up in anticipation and cause an entire stadium to erupt into a series of deafening cheers. Also, for all its pulse pounding fury, the opening track “Fight Fire with Fire” has that deceptively light and weirdly pleasant intro which lulls the listener into a false sense of security before opening the floodgates and unleashing a torrent of hellish frenzy. It really is a smart, killer way to kick off the album.

So what exactly is it that separates one riff from another and causes it to stick in your head to the point where you still catch yourself humming along to it years later? For me, it’s when the perfect balance is struck between intensity and relative simplicity. It’s gotta pack a punch, but it also needs to be simple enough to be both easily digestible and memorable. Metallica are black belts in that arena, having churned out dozens upon dozens of riffs that can be recalled and identified in a split second. When it comes to this album specifically, you can’t talk about iconic riffs without mentioning the title track, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, and of course the penultimate track “Creeping Death”, which has been something of a default opener at their live shows for years (they opened with it at the show I went to and I lost my goddamn mind). But at the same time, it would be criminal to overlook the album’s sprawling instrumental closing track “The Call of Ktulu”, which features some very tasteful but deceptively subtle bass work from the mighty Cliff Burton, and one hell of a strong ending to bring the curtains down on an album that was destined to become an instant classic. Those timpani get me every time.

The classics are classics for a reason. This album landed like an atomic bomb when it first came out on this day 40 years ago, sending a message to the world that Metallica weren’t just a flash in the pan but a force to be reckoned with, and it still packs a wallop after all this time. They may sound very different today than they did in the beginning, and like many of us I have mixed feelings about some of the choices they made over the years, but wherever you stand, love ’em or hate ’em, the resounding impact that Ride the Lightning had and continues to have on heavy metal as a whole is impossible to deny. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to listen to these songs without feeling a little giddy and having a subtle satisfied grin creep over my face, and frankly, I don’t ever want to.