Top 10 Metallica Songs with the Greatest Riffs

The music really speaks to me, when I hear fade to black it strikes a chord deep inside of my soul, almost as if the song was written about me, as though "Metallica" wrote the song for me..
Disposable Heroes by far has the best bass riffs ever, but Fade To Black has completely angelic riffs. I cannot stop listening to this song for those acoustic riffs.
Although Master and Blackened are really fast and heavy, I'd have to say this one wins it for me. It's just so amazing!
This Ballad is one of the best, but I still think the best is One. Howewver, the bass, the guitars and the drum are very good for this song.

Kirk wrote this riff.


I definitely loved Master of Puppets, but the main riff in Blackened and Battery are better in my opinion... and so is the darkness imprisoning me riff in One and the die by my hand riff in Creeping Death
This song, fade to black, Through the never, sad but true, and Enter sandman are my favorite Metallica Songs. They are my favorite band. I love Metallica!
I can listen to this over a thousand times and still not get bored of it.
Ok, I agree this is the best, but where's Orion! It deserves to be in this list, it's an epic riff by Cliff Burton

Riff before solo is Awesome! Sometimes I regret that Dave Mustaine has been kicked out of Metallica...
This should surely be #1 or at least Top 10. What the hell?
Amazing heavy riff

My favourite by miles! But I am a romantic.
It's so damn heavy!

This song has the best riff definitely. I mean, this is not the best song of Metallica, and others of the first stuff are better, but the heavy riff of SBT is absolutely fantstic and amazing, with an aggressive solo by Kirk Hammett!
Metallica had never used drop D tuning before, but they knocked it out of the park in one swing with the riff in this song.
So simple, but so powerful as well. Love it!
It surely belongs in the top 10 list.



Personally, I think that most of the best riffs ever done by Metallica (songs like The Four Horsemen, parts of Ride The Lightning, a lot of Call of Ktulu) were Dave Mustaine riffs. But Creeping Death easily takes the cake for being the best that he didn't write.
Not the most difficult and technical riff, but the main riff is absolutely epic sounding.
The main riff, and the Die riff are the best that James and Kirk have come up with.

The main riff in Blackened is my favorite riff of all time... by anyone!

This is by far one of the most epic Metallica riffs. The riff as a really evil and heavy sound to it. and you can't beat the bass solo at the begginning.
This is the best riff ever, despite I don't think that this is my favourite song... Forever FTBT!


The riff is awesome. Just like this song. Criminally underrated song.
The world's darkest heaviest riff.
Aggression, power, unstoppable, invincible, incredible. 5 words that describe how I feel when I hear this song. The clean riff in the intro and the heavy version of that riff may be simple but very very very powerful and pure heavy metal! Probably my favorite 'Tallica song.


Some kind of monster in top 10, sorry I'm just laughing.
Seriously, to live is to die riffs are the last cliff's riffs so that just can be number 1 haha

This iconic metallica song should be at least number 3!


Oh come on! This has one of Metallica's most epic intros as well as one of their best solos!
Amazing intro, amazing solo, amazing lyrics... amazing song. Before vote for master of puppets or enter sandman, listen all this amazing kick ass songs.


The middle riff at 183 bpm is so damn hard. I am really lucky I play lead and don't have to play that one over and over again.

This song has several riffs, all of them are great. Yeah the intro riff is nice, but I think the variation of the main riff that plays immediately after the solo is the best, and it's one of my favorite guitar riffs ever, just because of how heavy it sounds.
One of the best riffs ever... Simply beautiful

That fast riff that starts at 4 minutes just blows my mind every time I listen to it! I LOVE IT!
The fast riff that starts at half of the song is BEAST!

The verse riff defines what thrash metal is: crushingly hard, blindingly fast and definitely unstoppable.
The beginning riff is just amazing!

One of the best riffs in Metallica's collection.
Yes, Dave Mustaine wrote the riff, but remember he was a part of Metallica at some point of time. Unfortunately for him, this song came out first so he had to increase the tempo for the Mechanix.