Ride the Lightning is Metallica’s second album. In most ways this is a better album than the debut album Kill ‘Em All. But there are on the other hand a couple of songs I usually skip when I listen tp it. Not because they’re bad in any way, shape or form. It’s more like the other songs are so much better that these few skippable track doesn’t come up to par in the comparison.
James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich has their hand in all of the songs in one way or an other. I never really understood thei songwriting concept. Why does Lars has so many song writing credits. I double that he came up with the original ideas. No, But I do think that he was fundamental in the structures of the songs and how to piece together the different riffs that the other came up with.
Dave Mustaine again has a couple of credits on Ride the Lightning, just as he did on Kill ’Em All. And Cliff Burton was apparently involved in the creation in a lot of the songs. I honestly don’t think that Metallica would have been what they are today without his early influences. He had genuine knowledge about harmonies and what would actually world. Not to miscredit the other but I think he was the driving force behind not just putting riff after riff on top of another.
And Kirk Hammet also have a few credits regarding to the song writing on Ride the Lightning. I think they recorded everything they came up with and then tried to piece together what they came up with into songs. It might become even more apparent on the next album – Master of Puppets, but I think you can make that assumption even here, And that they wrote songs in this manner has been stated in numerous interviews of the years. And I think this is where Lars Ulrich made such an impact.
There are a couple of tracks that I usually skip. I shouldn’t because they’re actually really good, but they never got to be such classic as many of the others. I mean, Compare Creeping Death and Fade to Black (the first ballad), or even For WHom the Bells tolls, with Escape or even Trapped Under Ice. The first few has made the cut historically but the latter ones hasn’t. They aren’t bad songs in any way but that still incomparable with the greatness of the best songs on the album.
The instrumental Call of Ktulu, is of course influenced by the work of HP Lovecraft and his cosmic universe on “ancients”. If you have read the stories you can almost see inner images of the story when you listen to the song. The structure matched the storytelling technique in the short story Call of Cthulhu very well.
Sound, and production wise, Ride the Lightning is a step forward compared to the debut album. It does not have the same amount of genuine energy but is abetter composed over all.James Hetfiels singing is way better on Ride the Lightning too! It’s very hard to chose a favorite among these two albums. I don’t think I can!
