Kill Em

Product Information

Every metalhead I know is at least familiar with Metallica, and for good reasons. They're the ones who joined the big four (along with Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax) and popularize the thrash metal genre. One of their albums "Master of Puppets" is considered one of the greatest heavy metal albums of all time. Yet, a lot of the people who praise MOP tend to ignore their debut album "Kill 'Em All".

Released in 1983, this is the album that placed Metallica on the map. It's where Metallica finally got their true style, as their previous demo "No Life 'til Leather" is where they experimented a bit with a variety of sounds. While much better thrash metal albums would come out years later, their debut album still holds up today.Your computer may be infected with malware or spyware that makes automated requests to our server and causes problems.

And, though the rough mixes vary in quality, the more fully-developed songs provide a startling new perspective on the material. Classics like "Motorbreath" and "Hit the Lights" actually sound fuller, meatier, and more vital. In this more organic form, the music breathes more. Apparently, the conventional wisdom of the time dictated that this sound was too crude for public consumption. But today, bands put a lot of effort into getting this kind of loose, raw sound on purpose. Now, we finally get to see that perhaps the final Kill 'Em All mix that the public got was too constricted, which makes sense given this music demanded a new approach to production values that hadn't been invented yet. But the new mastering job doesn't serve the main mix especially well. If anything, it only exposes the clenched and unnatural quality of the reverb that's applied to pretty much every instrument. Any time a vocal or snare hit rings out (like when frontman James Hetfield screams "PESTILENCE" on "The Four Horsemen"), the echo tail abruptly closes shut. If you were used to listening to this album on a shitty cassette or in a car or a noisy work environment, you probably never noticed. Here, the clunky gated reverb becomes the music's most noticeable feature. It was during this time that the genre known as Thrash metal was born, and it was all 100% unapologetically Motorhead influenced, although many of the bands in it took their more active bass cue from Sabbath, and the guitar solo sections from Deep Purple. From start to finish, Kill Em' All is a manifesto of sorts for this exact style of playing. I've got some reservations currently in writing this review. For one thing, it's kind of weird to know that you like an album less than every reviewer before you. People think very highly of this album, and why shouldn't they? Hell, I think highly of this album. I've got a tremendous amount of respect for what Kill 'Em All was able to do. It was one of the first thrash albums many people heard, it put Metallica at the forefront of a brand-new subgenre of metal that was attempting to play heavier and faster than the bands they were inspired by, and there's a lot of youthful energy on display here that is quite infectious. This is an important album in metal's history, to say the least, and for that, I give it all the credit in the world. So, what deep, harrowing topics does the songwriting on Kill 'Em All cover? life in the fast lane, and...more life in the fast lane, mostly. Just about every song is about how great it is to live fast, or how great it is to be Metallica, or just how great thrash metal is. And in the end, isn't that the noblest of causes? I guess the last thing I should mention is the elephant in the room; good ol’ Davey Mustainey. It would be disservice not to talk about Dave’s contributions for Metallica as he did greatly help shape their sound early on. You know his distinct style of writing when you hear “Jump In The Fire”, “The Four Horsemen”, “Metal Militia” and “Phantom Lord” as those songs have a little more, technicality to it? More meat and bones to the riffing I suppose? I mean you just listen to that melodic solo and the slow melodic break in “Phantom Lord” and you know that Dave’s sweaty fingers were all over it. In the end, I’m glad that Dave was fired from the band as it gave us some of the best riff writing and solos in the genre over in the Megadeth camp.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. Metallica is an exception to this rule. All of the songs from their first demo made it onto Kill Em All, and this stuff is pretty solid. The riffs are memorable and the solos excellent, the songs are fast and furious; everyone performs well, even Lars. His drumbeats are the typical generic patterns, but he works in some cool fills here and there. You can identify the album just by James’ voice. It has more of a shriek to it, but it’s well-suited to the music. I can actually hear the bass, and I’m not talking about just Anesthesia, I mean most of the album. There isn’t a decrease in quality over time, though you have standout songs. The album length (51 minutes) is just right for the amount of variation heard, and the song lengths themselves are short, the longest song only at seven minutes and Motorbreath at the shortest in their whole discography (barely three minutes). I wish they’d used this idea of shorter songs their whole career. There’s less experimentation with structure than in any of their other eighties works, but Kill Em All doesn’t need that. Its influences are obvious, and if you listen to it, it’s easy to tell that they were listening to lots of NWOBHM and punk when they wrote it. It literally defines thrash metal in a way that Metallica’s other albums don’t. As they went on, they became less and less thrashy, with this album the only pure thrash they’ve put out. Master of Puppets has about two complete thrash songs on it, and this is being generous because each of them have specifically non-thrash intros (Battery and Damage Inc). …And Justice For All should not be considered thrash at all, except for Dyers Eve. 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.

The production is not great of course but it's not bad either,you can hear everything loud and clear and guitars are barking pretty good. This album has some great lyrics in songs like The Fourhorse Men, Jump in the Fire, Seek & Destroy and Phantom Lord. They all speak of some sort of mayhem or pain and devastation. This sets a frenzied mood in the lyrics for the whole album. MFN 86 reissue:Repress from the 1st press "MFN" pressing. Same sound but lower surface noise. See below more details about the sound. The thing that really strikes you about this album, is the youthful enthusiasm of it all. Unemcumbered by alcoholism, drug addiction, family and all the rest of it, Kill 'Em All scorches by in a dazzling blur of speed. Hetfield's voice is still a screech, rather than the gruff but clean tone of recent years, the songs are barely developed, full of abrupt speed changes, and the solos are in plentiful supply - at least three in 'The Four Horsemen' alone. Metallica is a band I'm sure most who browse the metal archives know. Formed in 1981, they had a somewhat controversial early history, mainly due to lead guitarist Dave Mustaine's drinking problems, but nonetheless just 1 year after their first demo, they put out their first full length, Kill 'Em All.The production is rather weak, but what would you expect? So, a fine thrash metal record, all in all, but Metallica improved and released much better albums after this one. Still, a must have for thrash fans, as Kill'em All was one of the pieces that really shaped and created the genre. Well here it is ladies and gentleman, the album that started thrash! Metallica successfully took NWOBHM and fused it with hardcore punk on their 1983 debut. This album is pure speed throughout, it just doesn't let up! Let's take a look at the album... note to admin: This is a resubmission, since I feel the original review i wrote was juvenile, innacurate and a poor description of the album itself. Please delete the original one I wrote.) This is a speed metal album with thrashy parts. The speed is what really catches anyone from the start. Next, the crunchy and ripping guitar tones make this almost automatically heavier than any predecessor (excluding maybe Venom and Motorhead). The guitars are also extremely catchy at points with songs like The Fourhorse Men, No Remorse, Whiplash, Etc. No band up until this point had this sort of mix. The solos are both easy to listen to and technical. They are not too special but they defiantly get the job done here.