Kill Em

Product Information

Highlights of the album include The Four Horsemen for its galloping rhythm and complex song structure. No Remorse was also great because of its crunching heavy beginning and its high speed thrash section near the end, and Metal Milita had some of the best riffs Metallica had written. This album is ground-breaking as it has been called the first album of the thrash/speed metal movement. This statement can be debated, but it is a very early thrash/speed metal album indeed. Yes, there had been demos before with this sound, even the band Stress from Brazil claim to have preceded this album with their debut studio album in 1982 titled "Stress". Even if that is true, this album was the match to the fuse for American speed and thrash metal. There is good reason for that statement. Let me go into detail and explain this.

Around the time this album was released, glam metal was at an all-time high. It was considered cool to dress like a girl, fluff your hair to extreme volumes, and wear make up. Metallica took a stance completely against any of that. They increased the tempo, added darker lyrical content, and absolutely powerful vocals. They took the sonic sounds of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and mixed it with the speed of hardcore punk to create arguably the first proper thrash metal sound. Considering the band members were either 19 or 20 years old when this innovative album came out, it makes me think...what the hell am I doing with my life, just shy of 22? The lyrical aspect of this release has nothing really to do with Satanism, just filled however with hatred towards humanity without any compromise in that respect. Hetfield's vocals go well with the music especially the high-end screams. I don't consider this release their best of the 80's I'd say "Ride the Lightning", "Master of Puppets" and "...And Justice for All" were their absolute best releases. However, this was a beginning for the band and showed their awesome potential at such a young age. RoadRunner 1st pressing without "MFN" logo:The most raw version of the album. It lags on bass because they use the "Tim Young" mastering and it was bad imo but "Roadrunner" did excellent job on the cutting process and this version it sounds very sharp and very lively. The bass just follows suit here, and as a result I don't really notice. Likely the result of Cliff Burton's late joining, as he would not have time to come up with his own, third-guitar style bass lines like on the next two albums. The much contested (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth is Burton's sole credit here, and it is a bit of a double edged sword. It is a very well done, interesting solo that merits a listen. Or two. But I find myself skipping it on repeated listens. No fault on the solo itself, but it is just a bass solo, and I think it should have had parts of it incorporated into a full song as opposed to being just hung out by itself. Especially since Cliff was getting a part of every live gig to do bass solos.... The Four Horsemen” and “Seek And The Destroy” are the best songs on here. On Four Horsemen James actually sounds descent. And Seek And Destroy is nicely catchy. The other songs are somewhat worth listening to, if only for the magnificent leads. Again, thank you Dave Mustaine.Unlike Metallica's later and current material, there are actually songs on here that don't break the 5 minute mark, which is a definate plus. Too many bands nowadays seem to think that a song isn't good until it's over 12 minutes long, has a thousand changes in it, and consists of guitar solos that regularly break the 2 minute mark. There is such a thing as overdoing it, and thankfully at this time period Metallica understood that. But, is it a perfect thrash metal record? Well, obviously not. I won't discuss musicianship, since Kirk and Cliff joined halfway through, and Lars was never a good drummer - but his primitive drumming fits here perfectly, at least. And while James' shrieking noises were annoying at first, they grew on me. I mean, if I can stand Sean Killian or Stace McLaren, then why James Hetfield from 1983 should be any different? No, I'll discuss some other things. Your computer may be infected with malware or spyware that makes automated requests to our server and causes problems. The thuggish lyrics on Kill 'Em All updated Motörhead's roaming-pirate vibe for a younger generation of brash American kids, as reflected in lines like "The show is through, the metal's gone / It's time to hit the road / Another town, another gig / Again we will explode" from the headbanging anthem "Whiplash." Fueled by hatred for L.A. hair metal and a pop mainstream that the band never could have dreamed would embrace it eight years later, Kill 'Em All raised a middle finger in the air while sounding a trumpet of unity for metalheads everywhere with its us-against-the-world mentality. Now, of course, its youthful persecution complex seems silly and sophomoric.

There were many bands in the same musically aggressive vein of Metallica, even from the same location in the States, who were out to disarm the glam/hair "metal" scene and wipe it off the map.. And this album was the first real blow to the glam scene, and the catalyst that would fuel an army of bands who would eventually develop the thrash metal tag that would contribute greatly to the death of anything glam-related. However, unlike nearly all of the rest of those bands who joined Metallica in glorious musical battle against these drag clowns giving the genre a bad name, Metallica were the first to go the full mile and actually record a studio album and drop the first nuke on glam country, instead of firing demo missiles left and right, which bands like Exodus were guilty of. Beyond that, this vinyl is one of the best sounding pressings of the album and probably the 2nd best out there (imo) after the "Columbia House" club edition of 1988 that contains the best mastering of "Bob Ludwig.

Side guide

The outlier on this album is obviously Cliff's bass solo, dubbed "Anesthesia" (Pulling Teeth". Technically it's quite a display, but unfortunately it's too long for it's own good and there are only 2 sections that really provide a dynamic contrast, and that is helped along by the drums entering. Joey Demaio did a much better job a year before this album with his rendition of the William Tell Overture, which was probably technically more difficult than this song is as well, though obviously it wasn't original.

Regarding the production, I personally like it very much, a perfectly audible bass and aggressive and dirty guitars just like Hetfield’s voice. Perhaps the drums are the weak point of the production, the drum bass is sometimes difficult to hear, but still it was pretty decent. The album has no ballad as happens in the the following Metallica records, but I don’t think it’s necessary here because the album flows incredibly well because of the combination of aggression and melody which I talked of before. You don’t get bored while you're listening to the album, it’s not monotonous, the songs are very original and worked. They are made with desire to destroy your ears, as Hetfield says: “With all our screaming, we’re gonna rip right through your brain, we got the lethal power, it’s causing you sweet pain”.However, there is no doubt the actual music is very solid thrash. Hit the Lights, despite having the dumbest lyrics I have ever heard (I am tempted to do a dramatic reading of it someday), is a really fun song with crazy soloing, and before you know it, you’re headbanging and punching your lamps. A definite highlight. But think about this: you’re fifty years old and you’re still performing a vanity song you wrote when you were a stupid kid. Honestly I kind of feel bad for them. But that’s their punishment for not releasing a song that their fans have deemed worthy of being played at all of their shows in, say, the second half of their discography, more than twenty years.