![]() ![]() Vice magazine reported on their collaboration: ‘Rasmussen captured the band’s heaviness, yet found a way to give that sound space to breathe - all with devastating effect. James Hetfield, an opinionated and angry young man back then, credits Rasmussen for transforming him into a more musically mature individual. So, Flemming Rasmussen started work by listening to the entire Kill ’Em All recordings to deduce the exact sound of Hetfield’s guitar and recreated a slightly different version of it in Sweet Silence Studios. Life it seems to fade away / Drifting further every day / Getting lost within myself / Nothing matters, no one else…was James Hetfield venting out his angst caused by the lost amp. He was so down and distraught, that he wrote a song with lyrics that sounded like it was bordering on suicide: Fade To Black. That said, in hindsight, thanks to the Copenhagen studio, they couldn’t have had a better producer than Flemming Rasmussen to explore and fine-tune their recording chops.īefore they started recording in Copenhagen, James Hetfield had lost his favourite Marshall amp after a show in Boston. It was chosen over studios in California for a reason: lower cost. Ride The Lightning was recorded and produced in Copenhagen, Denmark at Sweet Silence Studios. To me, it’s a creative void in Metallica that has never truly been filled up to this day. After which, he unfortunately passed away in a tour bus accident in Sweden. His contributions reached a pinnacle with Master of Puppets, their third album. With Ride The Lightning, he was just getting started. And he was into a wide variety of books and clued into the pop culture of that time. Jazz and blues were part of his staple listening. He found his muse in the classic rock of the ’70s. He’s also credited to have written the entire harmony for Creeping Death.Ĭliff Burton’s musical inspiration was extremely versatile. It was Cliff Burton again, providing a theological layer to the album with this scorcher of a number. ![]() The song is an ode to the Tale Of The First Born from the Book of Exodus. On first hearing Burton’s bass intro, Kirk Hammett recalls, “Wow. And Burton’s beautiful bass intro, in the song after the fading chimes, is his most sublime work in the album. James Hetfield wrote his own take on the plot, thanks to Cliff Burton’s nudge to explore this war novel. The next subject was even more exalted: Ernest Hemingway’s classic, For Whom The Bell Tolls. HP Lovecraft was introduced to the band by Burton. The Call Of Ktulu was a hat-tip by the band to HP Lovecraft’s short story, The Call of Cthulhu. ![]() Cliff Burton’s DirectionĬliff Burton had no less than six songs to his credit in this album. And I would argue, like Steve Harris works his magic time and again for Iron Maiden, it was the vision of their mercurial bassist, Cliff Burton, that made Ride The Lightning a timeless classic. It was their attempt to take thrash into a cerebral realm, far removed from the feral, manic fury of Kill ’Em All. ![]() In short, Ride The Lightning was Metallica’s Dark Side Of The Moon. It was an amazingly multi-dimensional album lyrics were evolved, exploring a lot of literary and biblical references the sound was refined, thanks to the producer, Flemming Rasmussen and the music in itself, extremely experimentative. By undoing most of the cliches in their first album with a phenomenal follow-up, Ride The Lightning, the very next year. To quote Robert Frost, they bravely took the road not taken. In the wake of Kill ’Em All’s huge success, Metallica did something truly audacious. But when you play the entire album, the music tends to get a tad unidimensional. Hetfield, Ulrich and Mustaine infused the album with breakneck solos, fast percussion and shredding and some pretty straightforward lyrics. Except for (Anaesthesia) - Pulling Teeth, which was a bass solo written by Cliff Burton. It was the sound and power - more garage-like and raw - that made this album, a veritable design template, for other bands in the same space to follow.Īlmost every song in Kill ’Em All was written by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich and Dave Mustaine. Metallica’s Kill ’Em All broke through the annals of heavy metal and pioneered the birth of thrash. Pic Courtesy: LowRiderLoveYou, CC0, via Wikimedia Commonsġ983. ![]()
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