FEATURE:
Whiplash
Metallica’s Kill 'Em All at Forty
_________
I am not sure why…
I never considered 1983 to be a year when a band like Metallica would come through. They did! Well, their debut album, Kill ‘Em All, came out that year. In fact, it turns forty on 24th July. It is a brilliant album that I wanted to explore more ahead of its anniversary. I will get to some reviews in a bit. First, there is a feature I will get to. The Los Angeles band- James Hetfield – vocals, rhythm guitar, Kirk Hammett – lead guitar, Cliff Burton – bass, Lars Ulrich – drums – created something masterful and genre-defining with their debut album. It is amazing that Kill ‘Em All did not enter the Billboard 200, following the success of their 1986 album, Master of Puppets. In this feature from last year, Consequence celebrated thirty-nine years of a Thrash Metal classic. The forefather of the genre, in fact:
“Bang that head that doesn’t bang.” – R. Burch ‘83
Thus reads the quote on the back sleeve of Metallica’s debut album Kill ‘Em All, which was released on July 25th, 1983. It stands as one of the earliest documents of thrash metal, a pivotal album that explored artistic extremes and set the foundational archetypes of thrash as a sound, image, and lifestyle. At a time in heavy music when record labels were starting to embrace super-produced glam-metal bands that would go on to dominate radio and MTV for the remainder of the decade, Metallica literally said: “Metal up your ass.”
Ironically, that was meant to be the original title for the album, but the label execs decided it was too profane for the sensitive tastes of American consumers and suggested the band change it. So Metallica picked the arguably more aggressive title of Kill ‘Em All, ostensibly in reference to those very consumers. That is metal. And there are so many moments on the album that warrant that remark. You listen to it and you throw up the horns reflexively at various moments: the chorus of “Jump in the Fire”, the intro chugs on “No Remorse”, the opening riff of “Seek & Destroy” — just to name a few.
Suddenly metal had the punk attitude, the drunken joy of rock ‘n roll, and the poeticism of the ‘70s prog masters. Freaks, drunks, stoners, and outcasts had a new set of anthems and a band that was speaking directly to them: “On through the mist and the madness/ We are trying to get the message to you/ Metal militia!”
While not on the album, Dave Mustaine deserves a lot of credit for Kill ‘Em All. He brought the thrash to Metallica. Listen to the original version of “Hit the Lights” on the Metal Massacre comp from 1982, recorded with Jamaican guitarist Lloyd Grant before Mustaine joined. Not to be too harsh on a young band, but it’s not very good, something like high-school kids covering Diamond Head (which was pretty much the case). When Mustaine showed up, the riffs came with him. The addition of bassist Cliff Burton in place of Ron McGovney further tightened the musicianship.
As a guitarist and songwriter, Mustaine transformed Metallica into a tornadic speed band. There would be no Kill ‘Em All without his influence, and perhaps no Metallica as we know it. His wild side and drinking would also rub off on his bandmates, but only to a point, as these habits would lead to his removal.
A number of the riffs on Kill ‘Em All are obviously written by Mustaine, but it’s the desire for sheen shared by frontman James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich — a well-documented desire that has since become their albatross — that makes the album a masterpiece of early thrash. With Mustaine’s compositions as shells for the songs, Hetfield and Ulrich arguably improved the artistic presentation (i.e. the conceptual and lyrical alteration of “The Four Horsemen” from Mustaine’s “The Mechanix”, which resulted in one of Metallica’s finest songs).
Essentially, Kill ‘Em All is the best of the both worlds, even if Mustaine doesn’t play on it. Kirk Hammett’s solos remain impressive and memorable; Hetfield and Ulrich get to indulge in the record-making inspired by their nerdy love of Rush and Budgie. Though it’s fun to ponder the alternate reality where Mustaine played lead (listen to the Megaforce demos to semi-indulge your fantasy), there is no dissent anywhere on the record. The band is tight and locked in.
While several of the rhythms are Mustaine, the songs are Metallica. It’s fun to note the “firsts” throughout the album, tropes which would recur throughout the band’s career: Hetfield’s patented syllabic accents on “Horsemen”, the acoustic guitar that peeks through on the bridge of “Phantom Lord” (predating their ballads), an instrumental track (Burton’s bass solo track “Pulling Teeth”), and the use of samples with a pre-recorded military step that closes “Metal Militia”.
This was extreme, underground music in its time. Long before Metallica became a corporate music entity unto itself, they hustled like any aspiring band, operating DIY until they gained attention through cassette demos and live shows. The innocence of youth and discovery is captured on Kill ‘Em All, and those intangibles can’t be bought or sold”.
Even if it is nearly forty, Kill ‘Em All remains so fresh, startling and vital. An album surely inspiring musicians still, its power and brilliance has not dimmed or dented through the years. On 24th July, the world celebrates four decades of a masterpiece. This review goes deep with an album that I would suggest to anyone who has not heard it before:
“They are simple, angry songs with a punk rock ethos, which is not uncommon for thrash metal. Why did they tap into the zeitgeist so hard, thought? Why did the disenfranchised gen Xers had such a visceral reaction to Kill 'Em All and turned to Metallica like demin-clad saviors? It's because the lyrics don't speak to complex, wordless emotion, but the guitar does. Guitar has always been a primary weapon for Metallica and it already takes a lot of air time on this album.
The real "voice" on Kill 'Em All is the angry, powerful and hyperactive guitar of Kirk Hammett. Before you ask, Dave Mustaine co-wrote some of the songs, but he was fired a month before the recording started. Kill 'Em All is a treasure chest of awe inspiring guitar solos that both show unbridled anger and exquisite control. There's an instrumental song on the record titled (Anesthesia) - Pulling Teeth where Hammett's guitar is almost like the hum of an electronic voice. The opener Hit the Lights is another example where like, half of the song is constructed with solos.
For young and angry teenagers that don't care or simply don't know how to express their feelings, it was a new way to live out their anger. Nobody before Metallica had built these monuments to the noxious feelings that consumed them. They mixed the darkness of early heavy metal (Black Sabbath, Motörhead) with the speed and sophistication of NWOBHM and created something entirely new. It didn't need words to be efficient, but the simple and angry anthems worked in their favor and rallied the troops.
And it spoke volumes to angry young people.
Kill 'Em All didn't exactly made Metallica famous. It sold 60 000 copies in a year and made them a quite successful for a metal band, but it was a mere stepping stone for things to come. It laid the foundation for an identity that would become richer and more nuanced for every album until ...And Justice for All. So, Metallica didn't suffer from the aura of their first album the way bands like Guns N' Roses did. Kill 'Em All has a special place in their legacy, but if they hadn't gradually evolved out of it, they would've become Slayer or Testament. They would've been fine, but wouldn't have become the juggernaut they have been for two decades.
That is why Kill 'Em All is not Metallica's best album. It's one of their best, easily top 5, but the best was yet to come for the band that would engineer the sound of a generation”.
There are a couple more reviews that I want to get to. Pitchfork recognised the fact that Metallica hit the ground running on a titanic debut album. Maybe it was too different and bracing in 1983 to get into the charts. The more Metallica got recognised and people were familiar, that is when Kill ‘Em All did some proper business. It is a shame it took the world a long time to wake up to the audio whiplash of this mesmeric 1983 debut:
“Without belaboring the point, some albums change the course of music so profoundly that it's hard to imagine what the world was like before their arrival. Metallica's 1983 debut Kill 'Em All more or less singlehandedly launched thrash metal and established the template for every other speed- or extremity-oriented metal band on earth that's been active since. You can split hairs about the key role played by fellow ground-floor pioneers Slayer and Exodus, and point out that Anthrax and Voivod had also already formed by the time Kill 'Em All was released. You could even argue that other bands were bound to reach the same threshold of tempo and attack because the early-'80s metal underground was collectively headed in the same direction anyway—i.e: getting faster and heavier and building on the work of Motörhead, Venom, Mercyful Fate, and others.
But the fact is, several key participants in thrash metal's first wave freely admit that Kill 'Em All gave them a framework for the sound they had all been searching for. In other words, once Metallica stepped up the pace, everyone else followed suit. Listening back through modern ears, it's almost like revisiting those first three Ramones records—you know this music shaped the world you live in, but since so many artists have added extra levels of intensity since then, there's no way to re-create the sensation of how revolutionary the music was during its time. Today, the sequencing sounds a little more abrupt, and a surprising share of the riffs fall closer to traditional Maiden/Priest-level heavy than outright thrash. But of course, there are moments—the crunching chugga-chugga riffs that propel songs like "Whiplash," "Metal Militia," for instance—where Metallica's sense of purpose crystallized, and it's easy to see why the band became known as such a genre-defining force right out of the gate”.
I will end with a review from AllMusic. Like so many, they gave it a hugely passionate review when they sat down with it. I think, whether you are a Thrash Metal fan or not, you will get something from Kill ‘Em All. In a year when Pop breakthrough’s like Madonna’s debut were out, Metallica were providing something alternative and fierce:
“The true birth of thrash. On Kill 'Em All, Metallica fuses the intricate riffing of New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Diamond Head with the velocity of Motörhead and hardcore punk. James Hetfield's highly technical rhythm guitar style drives most of the album, setting new standards of power, precision, and stamina. But really, the rest of the band is just as dexterous, playing with tightly controlled fury even at the most ridiculously fast tempos. There are already several extended, multi-sectioned compositions foreshadowing the band's later progressive epics, though these are driven by adrenaline, not texture. A few tributes to heavy metal itself are a bit dated lyrically; like Diamond Head, the band's biggest influence, Kill 'Em All's most effective tone is one of supernatural malevolence -- as pure sound, the record is already straight from the pits of hell. Ex-member Dave Mustaine co-wrote four of the original ten tracks, but the material all sounds of a piece. And actually, anyone who worked backward through the band's catalog might not fully appreciate the impact of Kill 'Em All when it first appeared -- unlike later releases, there simply isn't much musical variation (apart from a lyrical bass solo from Cliff Burton). The band's musical ambition also grew rapidly, so today, Kill 'Em All sounds more like the foundation for greater things to come. But that doesn't take anything away from how fresh it sounded upon first release, and time hasn't dulled the giddy rush of excitement in these performances. Frightening, awe-inspiring, and absolutely relentless, Kill 'Em All is pure destructive power, executed with jaw-dropping levels of scientific precision”.
Turning forty on 24th July, the mighty Kill ‘Em All the debut from the legendary Metallica. The band’s latest album, 72 Seasons, came out earlier in the year. With most of the original line-up still in the fold - Robert Trujillo is in the band; Cliff Burton died in 1986 aged only twenty-four -, this incredible force of nature continue to put out wonderful music. Take some time to revisit their stunning and hugely important debut ahead of its fortieth anniversary. It remains…
A work of genius.