10 Hard Rock Music Bands That Avoided The Sophomore Slump
4. Ride the Lightning - Metallica
When the thrash scene was first starting to pick up some steam, everyone was rallying around Metallica's first album. Even though Kill Em All was rough around the edges, it was the start of something totally different for metal, being the perfect mix of Motorhead level intensity with the skill set of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands like Iron Maiden and Saxon. That was just the first record though. Ride the Lightning was where things really started to reach the classic period.
Although Master of Puppets arrives at the top of most Metallica album lists, Ride the Lightning deserves to be in the conversation of perfect thrash records as well, with not one wasted note on the entire track list. After slogging it out playing the same tunes, there's a lot more fleshed out material where Metallica can flex their chops, like making a full on rock song on For Whom the Bell Tolls and their first ever ballad Fade to Black.
Don't go thinking that the band had changed either, especially with songs like Fight Fire With Fire and Creeping Death tearing your head off from the minute that you start listening to them. Capping everything off with the Call of Ktulu, this is the moment where Metallica found their core sound and became modern metal legends. And if you were to remove the song Escape from the track listing altogether, you may be looking at the greatest thrash album that has ever been released.