9. Ride The Lightning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT516h7QwA4 Not too many outside of Metallica's fanbase know that Hammett was actually taught by Joe Satriani - a man who himself is easily one of the greatest guitarists in the world - and back when the band were writing their followup to the raucous Kill 'em All, Kirk would spend a lot of time with Satch, learning how to express his own style whilst also applying a huge number of complex arrangements and scales. You can feel it throughout all of Ride the Lightning, from the classically-tinged Fight Fire With Fire to the psychotically-fast intro to Trapped Under Ice that would connote older opening solo No Remorse, but it was with the title track that you could tell Hammett was constructing a future genre benchmark for all to see. Going outside standard conventions and taking the time to construct the solo from a number of different sections, it opens with a fantastically conceptual tapping section that mimics the narrative of the song i.e. the sound of someone being sent down for their crimes on an electric chair. As that buzz fades away there's some sliding octave chords that bed out the composition before the Hammett of old comes screaming in, leading to one of the most sonically awesome - and bedroom-imitated - sections in all of Metallica's discography; the final run of pull-offs that descend down the neck, with Lars thundering away on the drums underneath.