Review Summary: Not their best
When it comes to discussing which is Metallica's finest album, the contest usually boils down to Master of Puppets vs. Ride the Lightning. Obviously, both albums are really close in terms of quality, power, and songwriting, and their influence is such that it may appear pointless to even try and compare which one edges the other one out.
Lately, RtL seems to be the one winning. The most devoted of fans prefer it due to the fact that it came first, it's rawer and less refined (and thus, not so in-your-face "mainstream") and is less recognised by the masses. Now, romanticising unpopularity and rawness is a trait frequently encountered in kvlt circles, but I personally can't praise one album over another only for the self-serving fact that it's "thrashier". Objectively, regardless of what an album's style or sound is, the ultimate deciding factor should always be the actual songwriting.
Since RtL and MoP have been noted to have a very similar structure, in regards to how they are arranged, I'll do the very boring and unliked (but needed!) task of comparing their tracks side by side:
Opener:
Fight Fire With Fire beats Battery
Mid-tempo groover: Escape loses to
Leper Messiah (hardly matters, since both songs are weakest on the respective albums)
Title track: Ride the Lightning loses to
Master of Puppets
Ballad:
Fade to Black beats Sanitarium (close one!)
Fast thrasher: Trapped Under Ice loses to
Damage, Inc.
Instrumental:
Call of Ktulu beats Orion (expected, since Mustaine wrote it)
War song: For Whom the Bell Tolls loses to
Disposable Heroes
Mythcal themed song:
Creeping Death beats The Thing that Should Not Be
The score is even, so the albums must be really close indeed!
However...
Taking a look at the lyrics of Creeping Death, we see something disturbing:
The song appears to glorify the killing of the Egyptian monarch and people of Egypt by the Jews... Yes, you read that right. Creeping Death actually glorifies the act of regicide and the killing of innocent people by the schizophrenic Moses and his band of people, who consider materialism and greed as the only virtues. I certainly cannot condone petty vengefulness and such line of thought.
I suspect that Lars Ulrich had a hand in writing the lyrics to this song, instead of the usual suspect James Hetfield. As you know, James was raised a Christian Scientist, and thus knows the values of honor, honesty and the importance of sacred things. However, Lars comes from an atheist aristocratic background and thus recognised that in order to become rich, you have to suck it up to the Man and present your ass to Him. Interestingly, Metallica was chosen by a major label right after demoing this album. Hmmm.....
So, on this count, I really can't award Ride the Lightning a full 5, even though I admit that it's also really strong, and has the merit of breaking more new ground compared to its predecessor than the advancement marked by Master of Puppets.
Unfortunately, the ego battle between Hetfield and Ulrich was eventually won by that greedy little troll Ulrich. He succeeded in subverting James's pure values and made him his bitch... Which eventually led to the vapid cash grabs that are S/T, Load and Reload...
