JUMP IN THE FIRE

This nice looking EP (my mother disagree.....) is taken from their first album and issued as a promotion tool for this new emerging band.

Their debut album Kill Em All is a perfect blend of punk and metal. This EP explains why with songs like their early anthem Creeping Death. A very fine song. The inclusion of Am I Evil (Diamond Head) tells you everything about their influences. Lars and James is two of the very few dedicated fans of this English metal band. Compare Diamond Head with Metallica and you would understand why. The inclusion of this song here and on a lot of Metallica's EPs and live albums is a fitting tribute to this British band whose sound is the blueprint for Metallica. Blitzkrieg is another copy from a band called Savage or something like that. The three final songs has been lifted from Kill Em All again.

I am not a fan of that Kill Em All album so this EP is a two stars EP in my view and a waste of space, really. But it is worth having for Metallica fans......... if you can get it.

2 stars

A fair promotional tool for the brand new Metallica band that nobody had yet heard of. I remember hearing these songs thrashed on the metal radio show and I was not really convinced that the EP would be worth purchasing till I heard the awesome Creeping Death, one of their greatest compositions. The Blitzkrieg and Am I Evil cover versions are better than the original although Diamond Head were clear influences. The EP ended up in bargain bins, but it was nice taster of all that is great about the legendary Metallica.

The fake live versions of Seek & Destroy and Phantom Lord are more humourous than anything due to that crowd noise taken from some other band's concert. I guess the band were attempting to sound like they were popular but they were still very much an underground act doing the circuits of pubs and small venues. All that would change when the album Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets was released, and after that they were unstoppable and became a household name.