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In the summer of 1987, my next door neighbor was over watching my younger sister when she brought a huge boombox and cranked Metallica's Master of Puppets on 10, waking me up. Initially peeved I was awoken on a summer day where I could have slept in, I soon became fascinated with the sounds emitting from her boom box. I had seen Metallica t-shirts all over the place and I particularly remember the "Metal Up Your Ass" one, but I had never heard their music. I made a dub copy of the album and over that summer and for the next few years, I became entranced with Master of Puppets.
The irony is that at the time and even to this day, I was never your typical thrash metal fan. I have a profound appreciation of the genre and listened to Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth very casually. But there was something about Metallica that was different. There was gorgeous melodic structure to the songs on Puppets, agonizing riffs you that seemed to be a missing part of your soul. To this day, I still rank Puppets as one of my top ten desert island discs. However, until recently, I am not sure if I ever fully appreciated the evolution of Metallica that led to (and in some cases peaked) with Master of Puppets. I have two people to thank; Tom Trakas and Joel McIver.
Tom did a review of McIver's book on Cliff Burton, which inspired me to find it and re-listen to the entire Metallica catalog while reading it. Slowly over the last few weeks, I delved into this book and it pulled me in profoundly. When I finished it a few nights ago, I closed it and sat there on my sofa alone in thought for a few moments. While I always knew the death of Burton was devastating to the band, and recognized his brilliance as a musician, I never knew what a laid back, nice guy he was. Plus, I also had no idea how much he elevated Metallica and the entire heavy metal genre. If you have any doubt of Burton's influence to heavy metal overall, take one listen to their early demos versus their debut, Kill 'Em All. There is a world if difference in the texture and feeling of the album and it comes from Cliff. Burton brought that depth by not just holding down a beat, but in many ways by becoming a second rhythm guitar player. On the No Life 'til Leather demo, written and recorded before Cliff joined the band, that band is drenched in manic enthusiasm but the overall sound lacks and musicianship lack depth. The influence of Cliff to the band made Metallica distinctive, set them apart from other bands and led them down a path that many would follow.
Their original bass player (and most metal bands…hell most bands) the bass chugs along in the background, assisting the drummer. With Cliff, he was a third guitarist, layering Hetfield’s riffs to make them more menacing and thick. You listen to the demo and then Kill 'Em All and you know exactly what I mean.
I still love that original demo, but McIver's book (correctly) credits Burton with helping elevate the band to another level, which he did. The entire book is a tribute to Cliff Burton's life and in the coming weeks I will be putting up a number of related Metallica articles on this blog and over at antiMusic.com. The book sent me into a whirlwind of memories and reexamination of the biggest, mightiest and best metal band on the planet.
Buy the book at this link.
Read a review of the book at this link.
