Ride the Lightning vs. Master of Puppets

The Best Metallica Album

People will have their own opinions about which is the best Metallica album. For the most part, people gravitate towards Master of Puppets followed by Ride the Lightning. Listing ...And Justice For All, Kill 'Em All, or the Black Album as your favorite typically leaves you the odd person out. I personally believe that Ride the Lightning is better than Master of Puppets. The musical leap from Kill 'Em All to Ride the Lightning is staggering. Metallica went from a straight ahead and fun loving thrash band to quite the sophisticated progressive band. They did this without losing an ounce of power. Hell, they gained power. On the other hand, Master of Puppets is really just a refinement of everything accomplished in Ride the Lightning. There wasn't much in the way of musical innovation. There's also a thick atmosphere that permeates Ride the Lightning as the lyrics focus on the fear of death and dying. Master of Puppets focuses more on the fear of powerlessness.

Anybody that has listened the aforementioned two albums will almost immediately detect strong similarities. The song order and the style of songs is basically the same. A song by song comparison is what led me to believe that Ride the Lightning is the best. Let's get started.

The Opening Thrasher

Both albums open with thrashing mayhem. Hell, they both open up with an acoustic section. Battery is about joining forces with your bros and steamrolling everything in your path. Bro, that's awesome, but not as awesome as a song about nuclear annihilation. Fight Fire With Fire carries the dread of apocalypse bottom heavy riffs and shades of dissonance in the chorus.

Winner: Fight Fire With Fire

The Title Track

The epic title tracks are next and they're both great. Master of Puppets is an elaborate tale of drug addiction and how the severe dependency on drugs is similar to slavery. It has that acoustic break in the middle of the song with gentle harmonized leads that are famous. Ride the Lightning tackles the topic of capital punishment. A prisoner is about to be executed and there is doubt as to whether or not he actually committed the crime. The break in Master of Puppets is cool, but the lead sections in Ride the Lightning are absolutely amazing. Shifting chords as leads adjust is one hell of a way to build tension. And the riffs are also more sinister.

Winner: Ride the Lightning

Atmospheric Third Song

The third song on each album is what I like to call the "atmospheric song". Ride the Lightning has more atmosphere than Master of Puppets overall, but it's particularly thick during For Whom the Bell Tolls. The song is simple and super easy to play, but the chords, the melodies, the riffs, and the lyrics just soak the air with the same smoke and mist the soldiers in the song must have been breathing. "Take a look to the sky just before you die..." Powerful stuff. Equally as powerful is a song containing Lovercraftian monsters. The riffs are colossal. Each and every one of them is a huge titan emerging from the depths of the ocean poising itself to devour all life on Earth. The lead here is one of Hammett's best. Perfectly capturing the mind scrambling horror of witnessing such a blasphemous creation. This is a very close call. Hell, I was about to call it a tie, but I'm a sucker for Lovecratian tales.

Winner by the tiniest of margins: The Thing That Should Not Be.

The Power Ballad

It's not even a contest as to which ballad is better. The acoustic arpeggios, the chorus, and the leads are all superior on Fade to Black. Welcome home (Sanitarium) only has the cooler topic about being trapped in a nuthouse. Fade to Black might be yet another suicide song, but Metallica pulls it off so convincingly. Each note is a wrenching heartbreak as the soul cries out to be released from this mortal plane. All those goofy Goth/depression/suicidal/misanthrope bands need stop making music, do the world a fever, and actually kill themselves.

Winner by a huge margin: Fade to Black

The Mid-Album Thrasher

Now that slow moving ballads are out of the way, it's time to resume thrashing. We are greeted by a Disposable Hero that's been chewed up by the military industrial complex. It's a sad tale, but a powerful one. The lyrics are gorgeous: "Left to die with only friend, alone I clench my gun". It's a powerful condemnation of warmongering. Trapped Under Ice is about.... being trapped under ice. Maybe the subject matter of the song isn't quite as interesting as that of Disposable Hero, but riffs and how they flow into and out of one another is breath taking. It's also faster and more furious. Everything in this song is delivered in a way that it becomes more than just being trapped under ice. The victim is actually experiencing severe emotional distress and being frozen to death is a metaphor for how he feels.

Winner: Trapped Under Ice

The Groovy Song

Tracks number 6 are both slower, more mid-paced, groovy rockers. The lyrics of "Escape" are cliche at this point. Bro, don't tell me what to do, life's for my own to live my own way! Despite the lyrical cliches, it's a charming song. Besides, who would disagree with the sentiments expressed? However, a song about hypocritical religious leaders is more interesting. The riffs to Leper Messiah are more interesting as well. These are not your typical chugs. The pull off and sliding action on the main riff is awesome. The break away that leads to the solo and deescalates back towards the main riff is cool as hell, too. The solos in both songs are neat.

Winner: Leper Messiah

The Album Ending Thrasher

The albums swap the instrumental and the closing thrasher track. We'll compare thrash tracks first. An Old Testament story is next on "Ride the Lightning". The main riff crawls forward in search of a way out of Egypt. The "Die!" chants are effective and menacing. But nothing beats the raw metal thrashing fury of Damage Inc. This song returns us to the topic of "Battery": me and my bros are out to stomp all over your asses. It was effective then, and it's even more effective now. The melodic riff once the solo completes is blistering.

Winner: Damage Inc.

The Instrumental

Finally, we arrive at the instrumentals. "Orion" contains more riffs, more solos, and more textures. It's a remarkably adept composition that showcases Metallica's fullest capabilities at the time. However, the riffs in "Call of Ktulu" are absolutely killer. From the haunting arpeggios, to the spellbinding main riff, to the crushing chugs, and to the elegant melody that escalate up to one of Hammett's most hypnotizing solos; it's all so spectacular. The atmosphere is once again super dense. It's easy to imagine one of Lovecraft's hideous monsters emerging from an enormous cave and crawling towards you. Absolutely epic stuff. Probably my favorite Metallica song.

Winner: The Call of Ktulu

Conclusion

Five rounds of this song by song comparison are won by "Ride the Lightning". The quality of the songs and the atmosphere make it my favorite Metallica record. It's also one of the best metal albums ever.