The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
Metallica · produced by Flemming Rasmussen with the band · Megaforce and Music for Nations · eight tracks · about 47 minutes
Mode
Thrash metal opened to slow and heavy tempos, acoustic preludes, harmonised guitars, songs of six to nine minutes in several sections, a ballad and an instrumental
Mythos
Death sent from a power the subject cannot resist: the bomb, the electric chair, the war of attrition, despair, the tenth plague sung by its destroyer, Lovecraft’s sleeping god
Phase
Eight songs on two mirrored sides, each opening fast and turning on long tracks; side one ending in the self’s death, side two in a god’s waking
Presentation
Album; eight tracks in their original order on two sides, about forty-seven minutes, four of them past six minutes, the last an instrumental of nearly nine
Register
Downpicked rhythm guitar, a distorted bass played as lead, harmonised guitars, a voice moving from shout toward song; dread in minor modes throughout
Scale
The state, war, the bomb, the sacred, the cosmic and one despairing mind, each one song’s subject, joined by one law of imposed death
Governing Proposition
A thrash band a year out of its debut gives its second record to eight songs of death sent from outside, by the bomb, the state’s chair, the general, despair, a plague and a sleeping god, and finds the music for it in riffs that arrive like machinery and long passages that hold the listener in the wait; the record that showed thrash could carry an album’s length and range, built on two mirrored sides.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
The record begins on a nylon-string guitar, a few bars of mock-Baroque calm, and the fastest riff on the album breaks it off. The shock is the subject. Fight Fire with Fire is nuclear annihilation, and its opening states in a bar what the whole record will say at length: peace is undone in an instant, by a force the one who suffers it did not choose. The song ends in a sound of explosion. Seven of the eight tracks that follow concern death or entombment, and each gives death an agent from outside.
Ride the Lightning is Metallica’s second album. It was recorded at Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen in the early months of 1984 and produced by Flemming Rasmussen with the band, and it was released on 27 July 1984 on Megaforce Records in the United States and Music for Nations in the United Kingdom; Elektra reissued it later that year, after the band signed to that label. James Hetfield sings and plays rhythm guitar, Kirk Hammett plays lead guitar, Cliff Burton bass and Lars Ulrich drums. Dave Mustaine, dismissed in 1983, shares writing credits on the title track and The Call of Ktulu. Eight tracks make about forty-seven minutes on two sides of nearly equal length.
The inheritance was speed: the riffs of the new wave of British heavy metal, and the band’s own Kill ’Em All (1983), a fast, short-form debut. The second record kept the speed and gave the rest of itself to things the scene did not prize: slow and heavy tempos, acoustic preludes, harmonised guitar lines, songs of six to nine minutes in several sections, a ballad and an instrumental. Four of the eight tracks run past six minutes and take more than three fifths of the running time. A thrash band a year into a scene that measured itself by speed staked its standing there on dynamics and length.
Movement II
The title track is the electric chair, sung in the condemned man’s own voice, counting the time to the switch. Its finding is the record’s: death in the modern world is administered, and the one who suffers it is powerless before a system. The chair is a modern rite of sacrifice, the state’s killing made procedure. The song runs past six minutes at a middle tempo, and its long instrumental middle is the wait made audible, the listener held where the condemned man is held. Told in three minutes, the song would lose the thing it describes.
For Whom the Bell Tolls follows, a battle of attrition after Hemingway’s novel, whose title Hemingway took from Donne. It opens on a bell and on Burton’s bass, distorted and played as lead, a line that sounds like a voice, and it is the finest making on the record. Then it sets a riff that advances as slowly as men in mud. The soldier’s futile death is carried by tempo alone: a march too heavy to move, the grandeur in the weight.
The two songs show where the record’s knowledge lives. The words are blunt; the disclosure is in the sound, in riffs that arrive like machinery and sections that switch without transition, so that the power the songs describe is heard as the music’s own force. Rasmussen’s production gave the band a weight it had not had, though by the measure of the records that followed it is dry and thin in the low end. Hetfield’s downpicked rhythm guitar is exact, and the arrangements are built section by section with control.
Movement III
Side one ends in the self’s death. Fade to Black is a first-person account of despair arriving at the wish to die, and it is the record’s most exact disclosure, sung plainly and without the genre’s armour. In the heavy metal of 1984 that was a real thing to say. Hetfield’s voice, which on the debut had been a shout, has moved toward a sung line, and the song depends on it.
Its form is its subject. It begins as an acoustic ballad, with a melody and a harmonised solo that make the first of its heights, and turns to a heavy close: the tempo doubles, and the outro solo climbs over a repeated figure to the record’s warmest height. The power that came from outside in the first three songs, the bomb, the state and the general, is here turned inward, and the record’s law holds: despair is a force the one who suffers it cannot resist.
Fade to Black is the song that deepens most with return. The others give most of what their words hold on first hearing; this one keeps something back, and it has stayed in the band’s concerts for decades beside the opener, the title track, For Whom the Bell Tolls and Creeping Death. The fourth-track ballad that turns to a heavy close became a form the band used again, on Master of Puppets (1986), which stands on this desk at 8.4.
Movement IV
Side two mirrors side one: it opens on a fast thrasher and turns on two long tracks. Trapped Under Ice is the record’s second fast opener, a body frozen awake in a tomb, played with machine precision but serviceable rather than required, its premise one the title track already holds. Escape follows, a mid-tempo, chorus-led song of refusal and personal freedom, generically arranged. It is the one place the record’s law breaks: a song of self-assertion in a record about helplessness, and the one track it could lose with gain.
Then Creeping Death, the record’s built myth. It is the tenth plague of Exodus, sung by the angel of death itself: the Hebrew slave’s grievance against Egypt answered by the killing of the firstborn, the passing-over marked in blood. The song’s force depends on its singer being the destroyer, and the archetype is load-bearing while the particular stays particular. Everywhere else on the record the power is seen from below; here it speaks.
Its bridge is the summit of the record: a chanted section, “Die by my hand”, in which the destroyer is given a crowd’s voice. Four decades of concerts have shifted its meaning with use, and the chant has become the crowd’s own. The arrangement is among the record’s most studied, and the song is the clearest evidence of what the record did to its field: thrash could hold length, sections and a built drama without giving up its weight.
Movement V
The record closes on an instrumental of nearly nine minutes, the dread with the words removed. Lovecraft’s sleeping god is summoned by title and by an atmosphere of something waking: an arpeggio that builds, and a massed close. Side one ended in the self’s death; side two ends in a god’s waking, and the plan of two mirrored sides gives eight songs one arc. The acoustic prelude that opened the record was calm about to be destroyed; this is the destroyer heard from far off. Burton’s hand in its harmony is again the finest of the making. In 1999 it was rearranged for orchestra with Michael Kamen on S&M.
What the record did to its field is a reorganisation of what the thrash album could be: length and range, dynamics, ballad, instrumental and long multi-section songs, without the loss of weight. Its languages were inherited, Iron Maiden’s and Mercyful Fate’s long sectional forms, Black Sabbath’s slowness, the British new wave’s riff, but the joining was this record’s. The band’s next record took its plan almost track for track and perfected it; the decade’s thrash took up its long forms, its fourth-track ballad and its instrumental. Outside metal its pressure is slight, and the depth players keep finding in it lies largely within one tradition of playing.
Forty-two years have kept the recording whole and in print, its songs in the band’s concerts and the album heard entire. Its sound is of its year, and the Cold War subject of its opener is topical. What it holds is a wide span of orders for an album, the state, war, the bomb, the sacred, the cosmic and one despairing mind, but listed song by song, crossed by no figure and joined loosely by one law; the family, labour and the natural order are absent. Within that law the record is whole: eight deaths sent from outside, and the last of them a god that has not yet woken.
Act III · The Twelve
Eight tracks, and the record’s plan compels most of them. Fight Fire with Fire must open: a few bars of nylon-string calm broken by the fastest riff on the album states the subject, peace undone in an instant. The title track, For Whom the Bell Tolls and Fade to Black each give death a different agent, the state, war and the self, and Creeping Death gives it a god; The Call of Ktulu is the compelled close, the dread with the words removed. The plan of mirrored sides, each opening fast, gives Trapped Under Ice its place, though its premise repeats the title track’s. Escape is the one track the record could lose with gain.
Score: 8.1 / 10
What the record brings into the open can be stated: death in the modern world is administered, and the one who suffers it is powerless before a system, whether the chair, the general’s attrition, the bomb or a god’s sentence. The title track speaks in the condemned man’s voice, counting the time to the switch, and its long instrumental middle is the wait made audible. For Whom the Bell Tolls carries the soldier’s futile death by tempo alone. Fade to Black is the most exact disclosure, despair arriving at the wish to die, sung plainly and without the genre’s armour. What holds the figure: the words are blunt and sometimes generic, and Escape states a teenage defiance.
Score: 8.0 / 10
Elevation is frequent and of the dreadful kind. Fight Fire with Fire reaches it at the turn from acoustic prelude to thrash, and again at its close in a sound of explosion. For Whom the Bell Tolls opens on a bell and a distorted bass line that sounds like a voice, then sets a riff that advances as slowly as men in mud. Fade to Black rises twice, in its harmonised acoustic melody and in the closing section, where the outro solo climbs to the record’s warmest height. Creeping Death has the summit in its bridge, “Die by my hand”, the destroyer given a crowd’s voice. Escape and Trapped Under Ice stay level; the top is high but not transfiguring.
Score: 8.3 / 10
Myth is built once in full, and the figure it builds governs the rest. Creeping Death sets the tenth plague of Exodus in the voice of the angel of death: the slave’s oppression answered by the killing of the firstborn, the passing-over marked in blood. The archetype is load-bearing, since the song’s force depends on its singer being the destroyer, and the particular stays particular, a Hebrew slave’s grievance against Egypt. Around it the same figure, the power that sentences, takes other forms: the electric chair as a modern rite of sacrifice, Donne’s bell through Hemingway, Lovecraft’s sleeper waking. What holds the axis: those are summoned by title and atmosphere more than built.
Score: 8.2 / 10
The inheritance is the speed and riff of the new wave of British heavy metal (Diamond Head, Motörhead, early Iron Maiden) and the band’s own Kill ’Em All (1983), a fast, short-form debut. The turn is large for its moment: slower and heavier tempos beside the fast ones, acoustic preludes, harmonised guitar lines, songs of six to nine minutes in several sections, a ballad and a long instrumental. A thrash band a year into a scene that measured itself by speed and the refusal of melody gave its second record to dynamics and length, and staked its standing there on it. What holds the figure is the path: Iron Maiden and Mercyful Fate had made long sectional metal, Black Sabbath slow weight.
Score: 8.3 / 10
Change the form and the record knows less, because its knowledge is in tempo and weight. A record about death imposed from outside is built on riffs that arrive like machinery, on sections that switch without transition, and on long instrumental passages that hold the listener in the wait the words describe. The title track’s middle and Fade to Black’s turn from ballad to heavy close enact their subjects. The sequence is counted here, once: two mirrored sides, each moving from speed into length, the first ending in the self’s death and the second in a god’s waking, a plan that gives eight songs one arc. In Trapped Under Ice and Escape the form serves without enacting.
Score: 8.1 / 10
Evidence over forty-two years, and most of it from players. The riffs, Burton’s bass lines and harmonic sense, and the arrangements of Creeping Death and The Call of Ktulu are taught, transcribed and reworked; The Call of Ktulu was rearranged for orchestra with Michael Kamen on S&M (1999). Several songs have stayed in the band’s concerts for four decades, and their meaning has shifted with use, Creeping Death’s chant becoming the crowd’s own. Fade to Black deepens with return. What holds the figure is the semantic yield: the words are direct and spend most of what they hold on first hearing, and the return lies largely within one tradition of playing.
Score: 8.1 / 10
The field is heavy metal and its new thrash of the early 1980s. The intrinsic force is a reorganisation of what the genre’s album could be: the record showed that thrash could hold an album’s length and range, with dynamics, ballad, instrumental and long multi-section songs, without giving up its weight. It was made from inherited languages, but the joining was this record’s, and what the band’s next record perfected, this one began. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: within metal it is high and documented, since Master of Puppets (1986) took its plan almost track for track, the decade’s thrash took up its long forms, its fourth-track ballad and its instrumental, and the band’s path to the commercial centre began here. Outside metal its pressure is slight.
Score: 8.5 / 10
Survival over forty-two years, weighed on form, then presence, then fabric. The form is whole: the recording survives as released, in print continuously and remastered, with a deluxe box in 2016. Presence is wide and continuous: Fight Fire with Fire, the title track, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Creeping Death and Fade to Black have been played live for decades, the album is heard whole, and it is certified multi-platinum, though sales are presence and not proof of permanence. The fabric bears its year: the production is drier and thinner in the low end than the records that followed, and the Cold War subject of the opener is topical. Those charges hold the figure where it stands.
Score: 8.6 / 10
Command of the recorded medium, with the words weighed elsewhere, and in places it is load-bearing. Hetfield’s rhythm guitar is exact, the downpicked riffs of Fight Fire with Fire and Trapped Under Ice played with machine precision, and his voice has moved from the debut’s shout toward a sung line that carries Fade to Black. Burton’s bass introduction to For Whom the Bell Tolls, distorted and played as lead, and his hand in the harmony of The Call of Ktulu are the record’s finest making. The sectional arrangements are built with control, and Rasmussen’s production gave the band a weight it had not had. The faults: functional drumming, solos at times formulaic, a thin low end, and Escape generically arranged.
Score: 8.3 / 10
One law governs the record: death arrives from a power the subject cannot resist, and the music is that power’s weight. The two most distant elements obey it. The acoustic prelude to Fight Fire with Fire is calm about to be destroyed, and the eight minutes of wordless dread that close the record are the destroyer heard from far off. Fade to Black turns the law inward, the power now despair, and it holds; Creeping Death turns it round, giving the power the first person. The range is moderate, thrash, march, ballad and instrumental, all in minor modes and one register of dread. Escape, a song of self-assertion in a record about helplessness, is where the law breaks.
Score: 8.1 / 10
Judged on what the record holds, with no discount for the album form. The state is present in the electric chair, war in For Whom the Bell Tolls, technology and annihilation in the opener, the sacred in Creeping Death’s plague, the cosmic in Lovecraft’s god, and consciousness in Fade to Black. That is a wide span of orders for an album. What holds the figure lowest: the orders are listed song by song more than held together, no figure crosses between them, the sacred and the cosmic are borrowed frames, and the family, labour and the natural order are absent. One law of imposed death joins them, loosely.
Score: 7.2 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
8.2 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier IV · Canonical
Strongest Dimensions
The Imperishable at 8.6, then Pressure on Tradition at 8.5, and The Sublime, The Swerve and The Made at 8.3. Forty-two years of whole and continuous presence; the record that showed thrash could hold an album’s length and range, whose plan the band’s next record took almost track for track; heights of dread from the acoustic break of the opener to the chant of Creeping Death; a turn to slowness, length and the ballad that staked a band’s standing; and riff craft, Burton’s bass and sectional arrangements of a high order.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 7.2: the state, war, the bomb, the sacred, the cosmic and one despairing mind are each one song’s subject, crossed by no figure, with the family, labour and the natural order absent. Below the rest, The Unconcealment at 8.0, a real disclosure carried more by tempo and weight than by words that are blunt and sometimes generic; then The Inevitable, The Living Form, The Bottomless Well and The Inner Law at 8.1, where Escape and Trapped Under Ice serve without being required, and the words spend most of what they hold on first hearing.
The Necessity Cap clears at 8.1 against a threshold of 7.5. The Coherence Floor clears with room: The Living Form at 8.1, The Made at 8.3, The Inner Law at 8.1, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is unmet: The Imperishable at 8.6 clears the bar of 8.5 and Pressure on Tradition meets it exactly at 8.5, but The Swerve at 8.3, The Archetypal Deep at 8.2 and The Unconcealment at 8.0 fall short. The Universal Minimum is met: no axis but The Encompassed falls below 8.0, against 7.5, and The Encompassed, which is exempted, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 7.2. Four of the five summit conditions are met; the summit is withheld on the Epochal Gate, and the aggregate, at 8.2, stands below it as well.
Basis · Ride the Lightning as first released on 27 July 1984 by Megaforce Records in the United States and Music for Nations in the United Kingdom, eight tracks in their original order on two sides (side one: Fight Fire with Fire, Ride the Lightning, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Fade to Black; side two: Trapped Under Ice, Escape, Creeping Death, The Call of Ktulu), about forty-seven minutes; judged from knowledge of the recording, its words, its making and its reception, with no recording or lyric sheet in hand. The album is the unit; the Elektra reissue of 1984, the remasters, the deluxe box of 2016 and live versions, among them the orchestral The Call of Ktulu on S&M (1999), are evidence for its depth and survival, not the object. Songs are cited by title, and words are quoted only where certain and never beyond four words. Running times are given only roughly. Facts that could not be verified, among them the month of the Elektra reissue, the number of its certifications, how long Escape went unplayed in the band’s concerts, how parts of the thrash scene received the ballad, and which later bands took up its forms, are not given.