Metallica - Kill 'Em All review
| Band: | Metallica |
| Album: | Kill 'Em All |
| Style: | Bay Area thrash metal |
| Release date: | July 25, 1983 |
| Guest review by: | TheH2K |
01. Hit The Lights
02. The Four Horsemen
03. Motorbreath
04. Jump In The Fire
05. (Anesthesia)-Pulling Teeth
06. Whiplash
07. Phantom Lord
08. No Remorse
09. Seek & Destroy
10. Metal Militia
11. Am I Evil? [Diamond Head cover] [Elektra reissue bonus]
12. Blitzkrieg [Blitzkrieg cover] [Elektra reissue bonus]
13. The Four Horsemen [live] [digital download bonus]
14. Whiplash [live] [digital download bonus]
Being an inspirational oeuvre for many bands, Kill 'Em All is the debut album of the most successful band of metal music, the first official package after some arguments among band members and finally Dave Mustaine's dramatic departure.
The songs are super fast and neoteric in many cases. Immediately by listening to this record, the punk roots come into view. The riffs are really heavy, yet raw and unpolished, which means they had a long way to go in terms of musicianship at that time. Solos are performed insanely fast; however, this acceleration causes quite a lot of bum notes in many songs, which are obtrusive. Bass lines are stunning and surely enhancing the quality of the record. Hetfield's voice is fairly squeaky and no way near a qualified singer. Arpeggiated guitar chords in "Phantom Lord" would be definitely worth mentioning.
As controversial as it might be, many famous pieces of rock music are brought to the listener's mind; "Sweet Home Alabama" can be heard in "The Four Horsemen", "Seek And Destroy" has been derived from Saxon's "Princess of the Night" and the Diamond Head song "Dead Reckoning", with many more examples to mention.
The production of the record is awfully weak due to financial restrictions and the instruments haven't been well-mixed. However, it gathers huge energetic moments, which some would dislike, as they might argue there is no drive, no ambition and the band was just turning up to go through the motions and not bring pure brutality. But considering the zeitgeist, it is still quite astonishing.
Finally, the package can be described as speed metal with thrash and punk elements added. If you need something speedy and brutal definitely there are plenty of much better records out there, but this one surely can help you enjoy a speed/thrash classic.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 6 |
| Songwriting: | 8 |
| Originality: | 9 |
| Production: | 5 |
Written by TheH2K | 04.06.2020
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
Guest review by
Iced Iñigo
Iced Iñigo
Rating:
8.5
8.5
|
Rating: 8.5 |
The history of the best Metal band began with this cd. In this album the bases of the thrash metal appeared for first time. By this time Metallica was surely the fastest band of the world, even faster than Venom . In this cd Metallica finds an own style which some years later will bring them to the top of Metal. The musical quality of this cd is not very good, but the quality of composers of Metallica is incredible. Of course the musicians of the band at this time promised much : Dave Mustaine and the disappeared God of bass Cliff Burton, apart the rest well known band: James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett and Lars Ulrich. Read more ›› |
Comments
Comments: 5
Visited by: 54 users
| The Melting Snow Posts: 673  |
6 for performance  lolthe latest in "I-hate-metallica-caz-i'm-cool"
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| Bad English Tage Westerlund Posts: 62002  |
In this album time there was not thrash, it give birth to speed, n thrash. Stunning album, great band till and includet black album. Yes pipulsr frase today, black album matters, but whit out this metal would be poor
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"  I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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| UPDIRNS Posts: 366 |
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| dylanw Account deleted |
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| Brutal Water Posts: 108  |
You should have done a bit more research before writing this review so you can appreciate what this album stands for. Glam was huge at the time and Metallica wanted to counter that commercial crap by making a metal album for the underground crowd. I don't care what you think of modern day Metallica; Kill Em All was brutal as fuck back in the day. I don't know about you guys, but whenever I listen to KEA I can hear all the love and care the band put into the music. It feels like it was made BY metal fans FOR metal fans. Not only is it a lot of fun to listen to, it's also a very important album in Thrash history.
---- That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.
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