METALLICA — '82 Garage Rehearsal Tape (review)

METALLICA — '82 Garage Rehearsal Tape album cover Demo · 1982 · Thrash Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
2/5 ·
Pekka
All bands have to start somewhere. For Metallica it was bassist Ron McGovney's garage, where they blasted out mostly cover tunes, mostly by Diamond Head. They had a couple of original songs as well - Hit the Lights was obviously the first one, and it never changed that much between Metal Massacre and Kill 'Em All, but the other one, Jump in the Fire has some drastic differences in this early form. The lyrics would be completely re-written before the recording of the first album, and James' singing would take a whole new angle. On this version he yells a continuous note throughout the choruses, with the very teenage voice he had before turning to the angrier style heard on Kill 'Em All.

This recording has a couple of the early covers which were never recorded properly, Let it Loose by Savage and Sucking My Love by Diamond Head. Both are good tunes played surprisingly well, but in my opinion they chose the best covers to re-record later. Killing Time, later fabulously captured for The Unforgiven single as a b-side, is suprisingly powerful in this early form as well, as are Helpless and The Prince, despite some rather clumsy bits and parts by Lars especially. Most of these pieces feature James only on vocals with Dave playing the sole guitar track, leaving a lot of space for Ron McGovney's bass. He's no Cliff Burton, but a good, solid bassist anyway. James' voice works a lot better on Am I Evil? than some of the other tracks, but listening to this tape it's not surprising that he wanted the band to get a proper vocalist frontman at the time.

A fascinating piece of history, but obviously nothing more than collectors/fans only stuff.
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