10 GUTSIEST Moves Metallica Ever Made (And Whether They Paid Off)
6. Creating an Instrumental
Metal has always been something that you're designed to bang your head to. While the words of the songs are typically about doom, gloom, and all things evil, their role is usually secondary to the riffs that make you want to tear your room apart. On the other hand, no one expected Metallica to take such a drastic turn with a full-blown instrumental.
When the band first started incorporating instrumentals on "Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth)," it seemed more or less a showcase for Cliff Burton's bass playing rather than a thought out experiment. However, their instrumentals started taking on different characters from one album to the next, with "The Call of Ktulu" painting a picture of the almighty beast rising from the depths of the ocean to tear you limb from limb.
As opposed to other metal acts, these instrumentals were unprecedented works of art, with Cliff Burton's "Orion" becoming one of the greatest musical feats in the history of the bass guitar. Even after their classical muse parted from this Earth, Metallica continued on with the tribute song "To Live Is To Die." Though the band went onto more accessible material in their later years, everything from "Suicide and Redemption" to their take on "The Ecstasy of Gold" have remained some of the most complex musical ventures thrash has to offer.