bill bodkin looks at a lost classic from the most iconic metal band of all time…
In a week and a half, the biggest heavy metal band of all-time will be presenting their first festival, Orion Music + More, at Bader Airfield in Atlantic City.
On Saturday night, June 23rd, the band will be performing their second studio album, the seminal, Ride the Lightning, in its entirety. The album contains some of the most iconic songs in the band’s vast catalog — “Ride the Ligthning,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “Fade to Black,” and “Creeping Death.”
However, one of the best tracks on the album is the opening cut “Fight Fire with Fire.”
The song opens with a near elegant, strum of a guitar, sounding like something you’d hear in a renaissance fare. The strumming slowly fades out, the reverb of the guitar fades in and then all hell breaks loose.
The song takes off at 200mph thunderously and brutally — it’s vicious, it’s ferocious and it’s absolute heavy metal ecstasy.
The frenetic guitar work, the machine gun fire drum beats and the early, lion’s roar vocals of James Hetfield really make the song something amazing, but it’s the legendary bass work of the late, great Cliff Burton that really drives the song.
This song is a pure adrenaline shot to the heart and for metalheads out there, this is a true gem that gets lost amongst the laundry list of classics that Metallica has produced in the last 30 years.
And in one week’s time I cannot wait to hear them do this track live.
Absolute classic. I remember the first time I heard it. I had never heard aggression sound so beautiful so brutal!!