Any Metallica song feels like it’s arriving like a freight train from its opening notes. Although James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich have made songs that rely on their softer moments, the band have always worked best when going 100 miles an hour right out of the gate, storming out with massive riffs on songs like ‘Fight Fire With Fire’ and ‘Master of Puppets’. While most songs in their catalogue come naturally, Kirk Hammett says one of their newer tracks always trips him up.
When first joining the band, though, Hammett was already in for somewhat of an uphill battle. Since most of the band’s debut, Kill Em All, had already been written when the band dropped Dave Mustaine for Hammett, the guitarist had a pretty good idea of what he was going to be playing over, being used almost as a fill-in guitarist before being given a prime spot in the band.
As the group started to make inroads into newer soundscapes on tracks like ‘Fade to Black’, Hammett would still find time to incorporate his flashy playing into the mix, coming up with the riffs to songs like ‘Creeping Death’ and a few transitionary sequences in songs like ‘Master of Puppets’.
Once the band started to become a global force on The Black Album, Hammett would find himself creating the most essential pieces of their career, forming the genesis of the ‘Enter Sandman’ riff before Ulrich suggested restructuring it. While it didn’t come without hardship, Hammett also let his guitar sing just the right way, turning in one of his best solos at the behest of producer Bob Rock on the song ‘The Unforgiven’.
While Hammett had more substantial input on the band’s reinvention of Load and ReLoad, he would ultimately take a back seat on the album St. Anger, containing no guitar solos and little room for him to show his stuff. When the band were planning their big comeback album, there was one riff too tricky for Hammett to play right.
Bringing Death Magnetic to a screeching halt, ‘My Apocalypse’ features a massive descending riff that feels like you’re being pulled into the underworld as Hetfield growls in tune. When speaking to Guitar Center, Hammett would go on to say how much trouble that riff caused him, recalling, “That’s a riff I hope I get every night because when that riff kicks in, I’m the only one playing it. If I don’t practice that riff, I’m liable to mess it up.”
Although the song isn’t the most complex Metallica song ever made, ‘My Apocalypse’ is practically the spiritual cousin to ‘Dyers Eve’ off And Justice for All. After an album’s worth of pummeling heavy metal, the song is the moment where the listener realises that there is no let up from the band, going full-on until the very end.
While Death Magnetic may not have been the most widely accepted Metallica album, it wasn’t supposed to be the next coming of ‘Enter Sandman’. After the tragic backstory of St. Anger, this album proved that Metallica hadn’t officially lost their way.
