Metallica: ONE Overlooked Song On Every Album
We need to talk about The Judas Kiss.
In terms of metal, a band like Metallica feels more like an institution at this point. From being the kings of thrash underground to one of the single greatest selling hard rock bands in the world, every single release that they have made has come full of the greatest metal music a band could ask for.
That doesn't mean that every single cut that makes it onto a record gets treated the same though.
Across their thrash glory days and even their bids for mainstream success in the '90s, there are always those few songs that tend to fall by the wayside every now and again, being either too different or just plain weird for the rest of the metal community to fully embrace. In the case of Metallica though, change isn't a bad thing at all. On every one of their releases, the best songs are when they deviate from the formula and come up with something that no one has heard before.
While not everything that they've been involved with has been great from cover to cover (hello, St. Anger), there is still merit in some of the more wretched parts of their catalog that are worth a second glance.
So put your "YEA-HEAH" and wah memes aside for this one...we're doing a much deeper dive.
10. No Remorse - Kill Em All
First we start when Metallica were still a baby band on Kill Em All. Whether they knew it or not, the songs on this record were to become the blueprint for thrash metal, wearing the influences of bands like Motorhead and Diamond Head on their sleeves at every opportunity. Aside from songs about headbanging like Whiplash, you do have a few curveballs in the mix like on No Remorse.
Though the quality of the production is a little rough around the edges, this is exactly the kind of grizzly riffing that would become the calling card for bands like Overkill in the next few years, along with James Hetfield's relentless downpicking that was a sign of bigger things to come.
With Kirk Hammett also being the new kid behind the fretboard, he has a few tasty licks to go around, even if the final takes could be a bit messy.
What really seals the deal for the song though has to be the breakdown coming out of the guitar solo, where we get our first taste of guitar harmony interplay between Hetfield and Hammett before the main riff comes roaring back in. Knowing what we know about Metallica these days, this feels like a little teaser of the kind of sounds that lay ahead like the massive instrumental Orion or James' harmonized solo in the middle of Master of Puppets.
It all begins right here though, and even the giants of the metal world have to start somewhere.