Kill 'Em All

Kill 'Em All is the debut studio album by Metallica, released in July 1983 on Megaforce Records and produced by Paul Curcio at Music America Studios in Rochester, New York, the recording that launched the American thrash metal movement and established the genre's defining sound: down-tuned guitars, galloping bass lines, and rhythmically precise, double-time riffing derived from the NWOBHM but played at substantially higher velocity. The album was recorded under the working title Metal Up Your Ass; Megaforce's distribution partners demanded a title change, and the band substituted the current name at the label's insistence. Hetfield and Ulrich co-wrote most of the material, with Dave Mustaine receiving co-writing credit on four tracks, 'The Four Horsemen,' 'Jump in the Fire,' 'Phantom Lord,' and 'Metal Militia', prior to his firing from the band and subsequent founding of Megadeth. The bass performance of Cliff Burton is one of the album's most celebrated elements, particularly the extended solo 'Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth),' which opens as an unaccompanied bass showcase and demonstrates a jazz-influenced harmonic vocabulary unusual for the genre. Kill 'Em All established Metallica as the leading act in the emerging American thrash scene alongside Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax, and its combination of technical precision and aggressive delivery set the template that hundreds of subsequent bands would follow.