"If Metallica are considered the 'Beatles of speed metal,' then 'Ride the Lightning' must be their 'Rubber Soul' or 'Revolver'"

hey man all i know is this album rools \m/

"I still find it weird that For Whom the Bell Tolls is pitched *higher* than standard tuning"

My guess is that this was done on the tape. It's an old analog trick to 'speed up' the band only thing is that it will slightly tune the whole recording up a bit in pitch.

They do it by altering the speed on the tape reels I believe to do this technique.

I think Motown was known for doing this very thing quite a bit in the Detroit years.

Would be funny if James played it live with a capo on the first fret

funnier if Kirk simultaneously didn't

There's a lyric in Fight Fire With Fire: "Armageddon's here, like said in the past". I had always wondered if this was a reference to the song Blitzkrieg, which was on Kill 'Em All: "The day is coming, Armageddon's near". I just looked it up though and Blitzkrieg was actually just a bonus track on the 1988 reissue of Kill 'Em All. That would've been cool though.

Metallica's Blitzkrieg cover was originally a B-side from 1984, and apparently they played it live as far back as 1982 so it's still plausible.

“Fight Fire” is hard to play and sing at the same time , you run out of breath by the first couplet