10 Heaviest Metallica Songs Ever Made

Most Metallica diehards like to look back on Kill Em All with a bit of rose colored glasses. Before they had even stated to make classic material on Ride the Lightning, this entire record is a perfect snapshot of what the beginnings of the thrash scene was like, with most attention paid to the riffs rather than the compositions. Though Metallica were just snot nosed punks at this point, Phantom Lord at least showed where they would be going in the future.

Opening with a very unmetal keyboard part, the rest of the song is basically thrash 101, as Metallica take a typical New Wave of British Heavy Metal style act and bump up the tempo to double time for most of the track. Even though this would have done well at places like the Stone circa 1981, the real interesting part comes when they get to the breakdown, opening up to cleaner guitars and descending down the guitar neck to the lowest note.

While it's not stretching to call this the first of Metallica's melodic interludes, things take a dark turn when it gives way to power chords before leading back into the central riff. The kicker of the whole thing comes from the fact that this was written by Dave Mustaine before he was booted from Metallica, crossing the boundaries of the traditional metal masters. Then again, sometimes when you need to make a Metallica song heavy, you might need a little Deth in the mix.