Banging on

Thrash pioneers pull out all stops – and books, and patches, and posters – for the devoted. By Chris Nelson.

adds another concert, plus more video to boot. This was an astonishingly productive time for Metallica. To this day, the band play these songs; four of the cuts are in their 10 most-played ever. Thirty-odd years after its release, what’s striking about Kill ’Em All isn’t Kirk Hammett’s supersonic solos, or the songs’ head-snapping time changes, traits which defined thrash metal and have long since been embraced by followers. What stands out now are subtler elements, like James Hetfield’s voice. His is no Dio falsetto or Ozzy whine. He sounds like you. Or me. Or any of us. Which means that not long after Metallica imagined life in a band, we could imagine life in Metallica. Released just 12 months later, Ride The Lightning marked an incredible leap, thanks in large part to bassist Cliff Burton’s background in music theory. Where earlier lyrics laud headbanger ritual, these songs take on nuclear destruction, capital punishment, warfare and the biblical plagues of Egypt. Fade To Black is notable for its first-person portrayal of suicide. Hetfield conveys the song’s despair with particular sympathy, several years before Prozac brought depression into the mainstream. Fans looking to these reissues for insights on composition will find only minor differences among, for instance, Ride The Lightning’s boom box demo, studio demo, and album version. And while the many live versions here are familiar as well, hearing the band blaze through a dozen breakneck songs in a single set is impressive. In one of several vintage audio interviews included here, Ulrich says band members listen not only to hardcore like the Misfits, Discharge and G.B.H., but also to Kate Bush, Simon & Garfunkel and CSN. In the closing solo to For Whom The Bell Tolls, recorded in Los Angeles in 1985, it’s easy to hear Hammett bow to Hendrix’s air raid guitar at Woodstock; more surprising is what sounds like a nod to Prince’s solo in Let’s Go Crazy. Meanwhile, Seek & Destroy, captured in London in 1984, shows off its hardcore influence. But where punks of the era might have preferred to stomp off alone, Metallica have always sought to gather together. Even seemingly bleak songs are ultimately about connection. On the box sets’ live versions of Whiplash, Hetfield always turns the song’s climax back on the audience: “We’ll never stop, we’ll never quit, ’cos you’re Metallica.” Metallica loyalists love their band through thick and thin. And it never got thicker than this.