Metallica - Ride the Lightning

This is Metallica's second album, 1984's "Ride the Lightning,"the song "Creeping Death" is another thrash gem, which features Hammet in full force at lead guitar. It is a haunting and powerful track that also has a lot of diversity in chorus and overall structure. The album rounds out with a song based on the Lovecraft mythos in the famous "The Call of Ktulu". You will see the spelling of Ktulu vary from Metallica's to Lovecraft's and other sources as well.

This track starts out with a melodic guitar pace that dances along a doom laden sound scape before revving up into an aggressive assault of guitars that progresses further on with the original intro's riffs. Louder and louder it climbs and eventually you are hearing a masterful instrumental track that clocks in at over eight minutes long. This was also the first instrumental in which all the members played together, giving it that much more power.

"Ride the Lightning has a great opening riff by Hammet that is heard off and on throughout the song. The songwriting on this album is superb as we can clearly hear the story of the electric chair's recipient being played out before us. The gothic "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is stoic as it gongs an old church bell at the beginning of the song, which quickly leads into a wide range of guitar work.