Metallica’s 1983 debut changed everything. Giving a stiff middle finger to LA’s spandex ’n’ hairspray flash-metal scene, guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich took their love of Motörhead, Judas Priest, and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and turned the aggression up to 11. After poaching Exodus guitarist Kirk Hammett and Trauma bassist Cliff Burton from their respective bands, Metallica had the prime-time personnel to carve off thrash metal’s first—and most ferocious—album.
Hetfield kicks off opener “Hit the Lights” with a throat-scraping shriek before delivering a howling tribute to heavy metal itself. Based on an unfinished song from his previous band, Leather Charm, the track threatens to careen off the rails at any moment—much like most of the album. Next up, “The Four Horsemen” is perhaps the most famous A/B comparison case in heavy metal history. Originally written by former Metallica guitarist Dave Mustaine—who went on to form Megadeth—Metallica’s version features Hetfield’s lyrics about the mythical horsemen of the apocalypse. Mustaine’s version, “Mechanix,” lyrics bulging with sexual innuendo, appears on Megadeth’s 1985 debut, <i>Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good!</i> Forty years on, the song remains a source of much debate.
Meanwhile, high-velocity singles “Whiplash” and “Jump in the Fire” deal with heavy metal casualties and eternal damnation, respectively. Nesting between them like a coiled serpent, Burton’s indelible one-take bass solo, “(Anesthesia)—Pulling Teeth,” remains a marvel of the form. “Seek & Destroy,” the first song Metallica ever wrote, was inspired by Diamond Head’s “Dead Reckoning.” (Metallica covered several Diamond Head songs, including “Am I Evil?”, which appears as a bonus track on later versions of <i>Kill ’Em All</i>.)
Introduced by Ulrich’s unforgettable drum salvo, “Motorbreath” distills touring life into a three-minute blitzkrieg of gas-huffing intensity. It’s easily one of the band’s most effective and underappreciated songs. “Phantom Lord” starts with an ominous, Carpenter-esque synth drone before kicking into an amped-up NWOBHM riff and a clean-guitar bridge that foreshadows compositions on the next two Metallica albums, <i>Ride the Lightning</i> and <i>Master of Puppets</i>.
All told, <i>Kill ’Em All</i> is the record that launched a thousand thrash bands while setting Metallica on their inexorable path toward superstardom. While it might have little in common with the radio-ruling songs of the Black Album—or anything they’ve released in the last 30 years—<i>Kill ’Em All</i> is Metallica in their purest form: savage and stripped down, angry and awe-inspiring.
During a 1986 tour stop in Houston, Metallica visited a local record store to promote <i>Master of Puppets</i>. There were two ways of getting to the store from the hotel: a van and a limousine. Riding in the limo would’ve been an affront to the band’s ethic. But riding in the van—without air conditioning, at the height of the Houston summer—would’ve been an exercise in pride. With <i>Ride the Lightning</i>, the band found themselves caught between the worlds of underground purity and mainstream recognition. <i>Master of Puppets</i> was even more popular, and the music even more intense: in speed, in aggression, in its suspicion and hostility toward forces of control. It’s an old question in rock music: How can you scream along to songs about the perils of conformity without becoming a product of it? The band took the limo, but they blasted the Misfits on the way, as though to keep at bay what everyone already knew: Their days in vans were numbered. In MTV footage from around the album’s release, Lars Ulrich tells an interviewer that Metallica is still four idiots trying to stay in tune and on time. The modesty isn’t entirely false: For all its precision, <i>Master of Puppets</i> still feels like the product of the basement or garage. And where the boys’ nights out of Van Halen and Mötley Crüe promise relief (through girls, through drugs, through sheer lack of inhibition), Metallica plays with the restless intensity of someone who can’t catch a break from their spiral of negative thoughts, whether about war (“Disposable Heroes”), addiction (“Master of Puppets”), religious evangelism (”Leper Messiah”), or the failure of mental healthcare to treat those who need it most (“Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”). They may sound epic, but their concerns are almost violently earthly. That the album’s sole moment of reflection is named after a constellation makes sense (“Orion”): On <i>Master of Puppets</i>, hell is here and relief is a long way off.