Paul Smeenus

I'd never heard the Diamond Head version before, I'm listening to it right now, although I'm not sure I'll finish it.

Hated Hated HATED the Gustav Holst intro. Hated it.

The main body of the song is playing right now, it suuuuucks, there's no balls to it at all, I mean come on, he's singing "AM I EVIL" ferpissakes, he can't sing it with the same gutless delivery that one might hear when the order clerk at McDonald's asks me if I want fries with that, 0/10

I hate what Metallica became but the young James Hetfield emoted this song the way it should've been. 9/10

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The entire Ditty Bops catalog reviewed

Unknown Soldier

As Trollheart has already said the DH version has more of a progressive feel, which indicates the roots of the band and they actually play the song how it should be played, which is as a song in various dynamic stages. Whereas the Metallica version is a more one-dimensional thrash sound, that tries to mix things up here and there rather than really embracing the song like DH do. The fact of the matter is, that DH were an old school rock band that based their songs around structure and progression, rather than simply going out to blitz the audience as early Metallica would.

Also DH were one of the more melodic NWOBHM bands around and their influences ranged from Led Zeppelin to Trapeze, which kind of indicates where they were coming from and they also had a passion for AOR which can also be heard on some of their material, which of course set them a long way from what Metallica were all about. Point being, I wouldn't therefore expect any Metallica fans to be overly excited with Diamond Head's discography, whereas a melodic metalhead could easily ejaculate over it.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

Paul, you have noticed that Metallica's version also contains the Holst intro, haven't you? I mean, it's the first time I heard their version and I was all ready to say "Oh yeah, but with the Mars intro it's crap", and yet they use it. But you hate DH's use of it? Huh?

That song encapsulates more or less what DH were, or could have been. They were travelling in a prog rock/metal direction on that album but then sadly overdid it with the next one, and then just went off into the Twilight Zone totally. But as US says, Metallica don't finesse the song the way it needs to be. I mean, listen to it: you have the big Holst intro (boo to you for hating it; I think it sets the scene perfectly plus I love everything about The Planets) then the big guitar breakdown into the chugga chugga intro on geetar, followed by Sean Harris's flawless vocal delivery (how dare you diss him!) and finally a superb, underrated guitar almost-outro by Tatler which just makes the song.

tl;dr: Metallica's version sucks, Diamond Head's rules!

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The Batlord

Who needs finesse when you've got a riff the size of Jupiter?

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Forward To Death

It's the same song.

Actually, Kill 'Em All pretty much sounds like Diamond Head on steroids.

Trollheart

Of course it's the same song: it's a cover. And DH wrote it... Or are you saying Metallica play it the same as DH? Which they don't, as I've already mentioned...

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Forward To Death

It sounds pretty true to the original, and that's why I think it's odd that you can like one and not the other.

Trollheart

Well yes, they do sound very similar. As I've said before though, I feel DH's original is more progressive and nuanced whereas Metallica kind of just thrash it out. Not saying I don't like their version, but I certainly prefer the original. Now all we need is a hip-hop version! "Yo! Am I evil! I said, am I evil? You bet yo ass motherfucker!" (with apologies to all rappers...)

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Musicfanatic

"Yo, my mama was a crack addict, she smoked herself alive. Agonizing little itch of withdrawl, I'm a crack baby, I'm trying to score after rappn' in a dive."

Of course, a dive really is more a rock term, I think. But what the heck...!

Plankton

Although Kill Em All was a breakthrough album, I feel it lacked the production quality they had achieved with Ride The Lightning, and every album after (up to the point of And Justice, I won't go beyond that). Just a natural progression and evolution of available technologies. Also, they developed better as far as song structuring and took more chances melody wise with RtL. Kill Em All has quite a bit of your standard bar chord chug where there are more breaks, tempo changes, and melodic passages all through RtL. They kept this formula, and built upon it all through Master Of Puppets. And Justice was more of a "Back to the Drawing Board" album as they had lost Cliff, which was key to their creative process, but they did retain the same songwriting structure to which they had built upon.

So, based on that I have to go with Ride The Lightning.

...and why isn't Garage Days listed? Because it was an EP? It comes in at a close 2nd for me. Some great tunes on that one (although they were covers), and I can imagine them beating on Jason all while laughing their heavy metal asses off during recording.

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