Here it is ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and headbanging metal mongers everywhere: the album that started it all for the most furious band to come
out of the early-1980's heavy metal scene. Originally released on Megaforce Records in
1983, Kill
'Em All exploded onto the scene with a sonic boom unlike anything the world
had ever
experienced before. With a dynamic mixture of all hard and heavy rock & roll
that had
come before it, as well as Metallica's own rage and fury, this album proved
Marsha
Zazula (wife of the infamous Johnny Z.) to be correct: "Metallica gave
American
headbangers something to hang their hat on."
Formed in 1981 by Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield, Metallica quickly became
known as
the fastest, tightest unit in the Los Angeles metal scene. By the time the
line-up of Ulrich/Hetfield/Burton/Mustaine was solidified, their live shows were
legendary,
and were like a mechanized panzer assault on the senses to those who
witnessed the
future metal giants.
The songs on this debut album are the end result of much crafting by the
various
members to have gone through the ranks of Metallica, most notably Dave
Mustaine, who
co-wrote four of the songs which were to appear on the album, and who went
on to form
Megadeth in 1983.
From the opening line "No life 'til leather, we are gonna kick some ass
tonight" in "Hit
The Lights" to the closing howls of the thrash-metal masterpiece "Metal
Militia," Kill
'Em All is an album filled to the rim with deafening decibels and attitude
unmatched by
any of its peers. What is great about this album is that there is no
"filler" material. Every
song has its rightful place. "The Four Horsemen" is perhaps the most
brilliant metal song
to come out in nearly a decade, since Black Sabbath's title track "Sabbath,
Bloody
Sabbath" at the end of 1973. With a time of just over seven minutes, it
would be easy to
assume that some of the instrumental variations of the song might be
wasteful of time.
Not so! In fact, this song could have easily taken up an entire album side
and still would
have been the monumentous, attention grabbing beast that it is.
Other instant classics include the straight-ahead rocker "Whiplash," the
intense building
of "No Remorse," and Cliff Burton's standard-setting bass solo,
"(Anesthesia) - Pulling
Teeth," which he performed often on stage, and always brought the audience
to a
feverish pitch with the combination of his frightening ability and his
onstage head-
banging. To quote Scott Ian of Anthrax, "No one banged like Cliff."
While not the best Metallica has ever produced, Kill 'Em All was certainly
one hell of a
blueprint to start with. And to think, there would still be so much to
come...
