Metallica Kill 'Em All

So here is where it begins: The fierce and innovative thrashers Metallica make a hit on the map of metal with their amazing debut album Kill 'Em All, an album that in the short, quick and undetailed term fused elements of fierce thrash influenced from the likes of Slayer and Earth A.D. era Misfits and the speedy blues vibe of Motorhead. This isn't exactly as short-length or as straightforward as the aforementioned bands might be in some places: The music here is quite polished and at a fairly long length going between 4-7 1/2 minutes (with the exception of the song Motorbreath).

Getting to deeper details, though... To begin with, this mofo's chunkier than chunky peanut butter! Seriously, what a perfectly trudging rhythm section. Every song on here (save for the bass solo Anesthesia) flourishes with beautifully precise chugging (which can especially be impressive when it turns to well-paced speed chug in some of the faster songs) from both singer/rhythm guitarist James Hetfield and second guitarist Kirk Hammett, and drummer Lars Ulrich mostly (with the exception of deepening drum rolls that mark just before the beginning of another verse) delivers relentless, hard-hitting 2/2 timekeeping that is rather basic, but is very impressive for being right on schedule with perfect beats while still sounding like he is somehow hitting the drums in between the guitar riffs (which seems pretty hard in the face of two guitarists thoroughly blistering throughout the entire song). All the songs are fairly tight too. The guitars have a very mean cutting-edge tone to them that are further complimented with Cliff Burton's shivering bass solo's that wrap around the guitar riffing, giving it a more thunderous noise.

As bluesy and darkly melodic as this album may be, however, it's still pretty threatening: James Hetfield's southern accented shrieks help fire the music up from the cock-rock metal anthems like in Whiplash ("the show is through the metal is gone/it is time to hit the road/another town another gig/again we will explode/hotel rooms and motorways/life out here is raw/but we will never stop and we will never quit/because we're Metallica") to extensively-written odes to death and destruction like in Seek And Destroy ("blood feeds the war machine/as it eats its way across the land/we don't need the feel the sorrow/no remorse is the one command"). The songs, whether slow and groovy (Jump In the Fire) or speedy and fierce (Metal Militia) sometimes tend to drift off after some verses into some guitar ranting with some ranting, extended, shredding, loopy and agile (if basic) solo's from Kirk Hammett, but after showing off for a while they still manage to wrap back around to their traditional song structure. The melodies on here are all fairly catchy enough that verge between vicious low-note grudging to neck-jumping blues grooves that carefully splatter all over my ears. Seemingly punishing, yes, but they'll never stop and they'll never quit... Because they're Metallica.