For many, this is the ultimate thrash song. The riff we'll see in Part 2 is certainly one of the best metal riffs of all time. Here we'll look at the first part of the song, as played by King. It's all you need to know really. The only difference between King and Hanneman here is that Hanneman joins in later and uses full powerchords in a couple of the riffs. Die-hards can check out Hanneman's ActionTab separately.

The song is in Eb tuning, which means tuning each string down by 1 fret:

Low Eb : Ab : Db : Gb : Bb : Eb*

* although we're in Eb tuning, we'll use standard tuning chord names as most people will be more familiar with them.

Beware - this is an exceptionally fast song. We've slowed it down a lot to make things very clear, but to get up to the normal speed you will need to work on building very fast alternate picking. Even seasoned guitarists will struggle with this one.

Chorus - The song starts on the chorus riff. The trick to this riff (and most of the song) is all in the picking. Boiled down, it's just lots of very fast palm muted alternate picking on the Low E string (called drilling), with open stabs on the following chords:

Low E5 - drill - F5 - drill - F#5 - drill - End Lick - Repeat this 4 more times, then end on this Bb5 powerchord variant before launching into the verse riffs.

Verse - Again, lots of palm muted alternate picking on the Low E string. However, this time there are more powerchords thrown in. There are 3 variations on the same short riff here:

1 Low E5 - drill - Bb5 - drill - Low E5 - drill - End Riff

2 Low E5 - drill - Bb5 - drill - Low E5 - drill - F5 - Ab5

Play variation 1 again, then this:

3 Low E5 - drill - Bb5 - drill - Low E5 - drill - A5 - Bb5

Repeat. Then switch to this repetitive riff until the next chorus riff appears.

The next chorus is the same as we looked at earlier, but longer. There are only a couple of variations in the riff (a couple of different powerchords are used). Nothing you can't handle if you've already got to this point!