Album number two was called Ride the Lightning, and the road to making it happen began and ended at Sweet Silence. Instead of returning to America to record, the band remained in Europe-in Lars's home country of Denmark.Īccording to Marrs, after the Venom tour ended in February, the band drove to Sweet Silence, which had recently been used by Mercyful Fate and their charismatic singer, King Diamond.
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They released "Jump in the Fire" from Kill 'Em All as a single, along with live versions of "Seek and Destroy" and "Phantom Lord." It was a stopgap release, but one that sustained fans' attention until new material was ready. James was always down-to-earth, just a genuinely nice guy who seemed to be pleased to be there and was there for the love of it." Metallica, Hooker and Music for Nations gave serious thought to the second Metallica album. It was an experience I'll never forget." Dunn acknowledged the success of the tour and recalled how the bands interacted: "Lars was always the spokesperson and always had the most to say. There were bands out there like Venom and Accept that played fast, but Metallica took this style to a level of perfection." When discussing that day in Holland, Petrozza was equally reverential: "We were excited when we heard that they would open for Venom and everyone went there to see Metallica. Petrozza remembered being inspired by Hetfield and Metallica even before that Aardschock appearance: "When Kill 'Em All came out, it was like some kind of sonic revolution. With a growing number of likeminded followers in Europe, if ever there was an opportunity for Metallica to establish themselves at the forefront of a transient metal scene, 1984 was it. The Swiss band Celtic Frost-who influenced a slew of black metal and death metal bands with their off-kilter and avant-garde debut, Morbid Tales-were another young act trying to break into the market with a much darker and extreme sound. Their vast stage sets and ambitious visual production set the standard for any rock band to follow. Both bands continued to tour and release quality material for another twenty-five–plus years, but this was one of several peaks for both bands, particularly Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden, the most successful act to hail from the NWOBHM that Lars loved so much, released their mighty Egyptian-themed Powerslave that year, while Judas Priest-that other force of British metal-were flying high with Defenders of the Faith. Some of the more established bands enjoyed career-high success, while new acts-including Metallica-were trying to crash the party. In many ways, 1984 was a pivotal year in the genre. Far from being a time of media censorship and cultural repression, there was an outburst of aural productivity, and it was an exciting time to be a metal-head. This shift became the foundational element of almost every track of Ride the Lightning (save for band-hated track “Escape” more on that one later).When 1984 rolled around, it was less Orwellian than some had predicted.
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Ride the Lightning tunes like “Fight Fire With Fire” and “Fade to Black” can be seen as evolutions of this stylistic dalliance, elaborating on the sense of atmospherics that were present in those earlier songs compared to the relatively straight-ahead thrashing heavy metal fare of songs like “Whiplash” and “Jump in the Fire”. This change would be inexplicable if not for Kill ‘Em All songs like “Four Horsemen”, “No Remorse”, and “Phantom Lord”, more programmatic tunes that sought to echo the epics-in-miniature of NWOBHM bands like Diamond Head and more obscure groups like Savage. Kill ‘Em All leaned heavily on elements of boogie beats nabbed from ’70s Judas Priest and the heavy swung feel to fast-paced riffs that Dave Mustaine would eventually take with him to Megadeth, but Ride the Lightning, released July 27th, 1984, almost wholly struck the swung-boogie vibe from its mostly slower-paced riffs, focusing instead on a near neo-classical sense of grandeur plucked more from the pages of groups like Rush, Rainbow, Blue Öyster Cult and even Priest’s more grandiloquent epics than bands like Sweet or even the more rock ‘n’ roll end of hardcore punk, a genre whom the members of the band were vocal fans. The first four Metallica albums are among the genre’s most powerful and enduring documents, and while the band’s debut LP, Kill ‘Em All, was a landmark for thrash metal, Ride the Lightning presented a quantum leap in terms of songwriting and structure.