METALLICA: Kill 'Em All Vinyl LP

The record that invented thrash metal in two weeks on a shoestring budget.

Kill 'Em All (1983) is Metallica's debut -- recorded in a fortnight for Megaforce Records by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett, and Cliff Burton, and released into a world that had no real framework for what it was doing. The album fuses the intricacy of NWOBHM -- Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Diamond Head -- with the velocity of Motorhead and the aggression of hardcore punk, and plays all of it faster than any of those influences. Hit the Lights, The Four Horsemen, Seek and Destroy, Whiplash, and Motorbreath arrived fully formed. Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth) gives Burton an unaccompanied bass solo that stops the album cold in the best possible way. The original working title was Metal Up Your Ass. Reissued on 180g vinyl via the band's own Blackened Recordings.