Metallica: Creeping Death

Hi GMC-ers!

Time for some heavy Thrash Metal! In this lesson I'll make an attempt to cover Metallica's Creeping Death, so everybody jump into the pit and let's do some headbanging! :)

This song was the very first that I've heard from Metallica, and the first casette I've bought was their same entitled single. That was the time when I became a huge Metallica fan. I remember buying literarly everything that had Metallica in it...

Creeping Death is the seventh track in their second album entitled "Ride the Lightning", my all-time-favorite Metallica album. The sond is pretty long, some 6 and a half minutes long. The song is written from the perspective of the "Angel of Death", it's text is about the Plague of the Firstborn, a story from the Bible. This is probably Metallica's most frequently played song, having been played over 1100 times since the album's debute in 1984.

Technically, this song can give a lot of headaches. Since James Hetfield always played the rhythm part with mainly downstrokes, we have to loosen our right hand to be able to cope with the riffs. The solo part is almost a minute long, and the first ascending run is played with staccato. I searched the whole net to find a single live video that shows Kirk playing the first and the middle section of the lead, to find out the exact positions. He really put all of his technical knoweledge into this one... but nothing a sincere fan cannot handle! :)

The structure of the song is simple and as follows:

Intro           (Bar 1-9)

Main Riff       (Bar 10-23)

Verse 1         (Bar 24-26)

Pre Chorus Riff (Bar 27-29)

Chorus          (Bar 30-43)

Main Riff       (Bar 44-47)

Verse 2         (Bar 24-26)

Pre Chorus Riff (Bar 27-29)

Chorus          (Bar 30-43)

Main Riff       (Bar 44-47)

Solo            (Bar 50-91)

Bridge          (Bar 92-96)

Main Riff       (Bar 97-100)

Break           (Bar 101-102)

Verse 3         (Bar 103-104)

Pre Chorus Riff (Bar 105-106)

Chorus          (Bar 107-122)

Coda            (Bar 123-150)

Outro           (Bar 151-167)

The lesson includes:

Thrash Riffing

Staccato

Legato

Bends

Vibrato

Arpeggio

In the small videos there are some new illustrations to make it easier to follow the lesson. In the explanations I will use the 12th fret, however in the videos you can find any note. This is just to make it easier to understand the illustrations:

12(14) - this is a whole tone bend

12(b)  - this is also a whole tone bend

(14)12 - pre bend and release

p12    - pull-off to the indicated note

h12    - hammer-on to the indicated note

/12    - slide to the indicated note

\12    - slide from the indicated note

x      - random note or a ghost note

Have fun practicing!

-Zsolt