The album’s remaining tracks continue to pulse with innovation and momentum elements of soulful beauty and depth are in abundance, not least with the use of classical guitars on the prelude to “Fight Fire With Fire,” before the brutal assault of Hetfield and Hammet’s buzz-saw guitars, accompanied by Ulrich’s machine-gun drumming. Unlike anything that had hitherto come out of the genre, the song’s slow, melodic arrangement, from its opening chords to the grandiose, heart-soaring finale, helped the band gain a new level of respect from music critics around the globe. It leads to the album’s halfway mark, which signifies the most poignant moment in Metallica’s career with the brave introduction of a thrash metal ballad, “Fade To Black,” marking yet another new approach to thrash metal. Without warning, the opening sequence to the thunderous, stadium-bothering third track, “For Whom The Bell Tolls,” solidifies the impact of Ride The Lightning as one of the group’s most iconic albums, marrying the unlikely styles of then bassist Cliff Burton’s classic rock and jazz influences with the rest of the band’s metal drive. Elsewhere, songs deal with the idea of living death through cryogenics (“Trapped Under Ice”), self-empowerment (“Escape”), and tales of Biblical prophecy (the timeless anthem “Creeping Death”).
The latter permeates the title track, which explodes with a catchy groove-infested riff and an anthemic chorus that still rings out loud today – the work of a maturing band pushing the boundaries of heavy metal and exploring uncharted territory within the very genre they had helped create. Abandoning the then-dominant heavy metal subject matter of demons, wizards and fantasy, Ride The Lightning’s lyrical content was inspired by politics, history, war, and capital punishment. The album’s opening track, “Fight Fire With Fire,” sets the tone, its sophisticated – but nonetheless brutal – sound creating a perfectly balanced masterpiece. Clearly also step up from its predecessor in terms of production, Ride The Lightning evidenced a more advanced and powerful delivery which is now deemed a genre-defining cornerstone in the way that the thrash and speed metal subgenres sound today. The resultant album cemented Metallica’s separation from their denim- and leather-clad peers.
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