![]() Plus, it plays LOUD, but without the expected distortion or fatigue one may associate with hotly mastered recordings. The soundstage is massive and the depth across all aspects of the recording is there to be experienced. That said, I’ve been blown away by the TIDAL Master 24/96 kHz edition as it simply sounds right. Now, as fans would know, Ride The Lightning was remastered in 2016 and while I’ve considered picking up another copy, from that particular re-issue series, I remain cautious having been disappointed before. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get any better when listening via headphones. Perhaps the best way to explain it is the speakers don’t disappear and the sense of being in the studio with the band is gone as you’re not enveloped in sound. While the thrash elements come through loud and clear, and everything is where it should be in the mix, this vinyl reissue has a concealed sound that results in a more restricted soundstage lacking in depth and character. Such a stupid decision, but we all make mistakes! Hence, when I got back into collecting music, following an exodus that lasted too many years, I was determined to pick up a copy of all my beloved Metallica records and with my Project Debut Carbon turntable at the ready, I immediately picked up the Blackened Recordings 2014 vinyl reissues but was immediately disappointed. Unfortunately, I don’t own the CD anymore as it ended up being sold on eBay after ripping the album to the MP3 format. I used to even carry additional AA batteries with me as silence was more deafening than Metallica rearranging my brain. Just as vinyl fans talk about the playback ritual, I can assure you, dear reader, the memories I have of swapping Metallica CDs on the bus, on a train, or before leaving for the next destination are incredible as the CD would snap onto the spindle and spin with the authority that only Metallica could demand. Ride The Lightning has always been one of my favourite Metallica albums and in the 90s the 1996 reissue on Vertigo/Mercury - Cat: 838 140-2 CD went everywhere with me as I was fortunate enough to own a portable CD player. Released in 1984, Ride The Lightning would go on to sell over 5 million copies and become beloved amongst fans myself included! Still, Ride the Lightning stands alongside Slayer’s Reign in Blood as one of the two best metal albums of the 1980s and more than warrants this lavish boxset treatment.While Metallica Killed ‘Em All with their first album, they were determined to Ride The Lightning on the second a record that has not only stood the test of time but remains one of the greatest thrash metal albums ever recorded. ![]() However, the death of Burton that same year altered the group dynamic for the worse. ![]() In the three decades since, they’ve never quite hit the same heights, although they came close with 1986’s Master of Puppets. Even the album’s weakest link – Escape, an attempt to cross over to FM radio – isn’t bad. Elsewhere, the title track is a first-person-perspective reflection on death in the electric chair the frantically fast Trapped Under Ice, about cryogenics, and opener Fight Fire With Fire show that their greater maturity didn’t necessarily mean compromise. Recorded in drummer Lars Ulrich’s native Denmark, it’s the band’s masterpiece, the tempos more varied, the songs more fully rounded and considered, the lyrics actually thought through this time.Ĭreeping Death, the only single to be taken from the album, concerns itself with a biblical plague For Whom the Bell Tolls rides in on a series of mesmeric riffs Fade to Black is almost a ballad, albeit a ballad about depression that builds to a climactic guitar solo The Call of Ktulu, inspired by HP Lovecraft, is an eight-minute instrumental that seems half the length. ![]() Ride the Lightning (the deluxe version of which comes with a similarly dazzling array of extras) followed just a year later, but heralded a huge leap forward musically. Metallica perform Creeping Death at Glastonbury, 2014.
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