Metallica这个名字就是金属，然后居然还真是个金属乐队——当初颇让我失望了一把，这么没个性的。。。不过Metallica玩儿的是Thrash Metal，这是一种十分原始的金属——也许是最早的金属流派之一，Thrash Metal的音乐即快且重，而且普遍的十分看重Guitar的即兴段落(所谓的riff)，是一种技术化和艺术化并重的摇滚，所以出名的Thrash Metal基本上都是殿堂级的摇滚乐队。
Metallica不算最老牌的，但是绝对是最出名的Thrash Metal，他们经常在专辑中放进一首纯guitar riff来炫耀技巧，但是他们最经典的——至少我觉得——作品，来自他们的专辑《Ride By Lightening》(跨越闪电)，就是今天介绍的”For Whom The Bell Tolls”和”Fade To Black”，都不是很复杂的作品，但是自有其卓绝的感染力。
“For Whom The Bell Tolls”取自海明威的小说的名字(其实最早是英国诗人John Donne的一首诗)，其内容也是一脉相承的死亡主题，甚至连正儿八经的钟声都有，这首曲子因为它简洁干净而大气的编排成了乐队每次现场的必演曲目，也难怪，这首歌简直是标准的Thrash Metal的范本。
“Fade To Black”也是关于死亡的，不过这是关于自杀的，整个歌词就是一份自杀者的遗书，不难看出这是一个年轻人——据说后来有个10几岁的男孩一边哼着这首歌一边行凶，结果乐队后来都不是很经常表演这首歌了。不过歌是绝对好的，前半段凄美的旋律和后端反映自杀时刻的guitar配合的相得益彰，这首歌的词儿更是金属摇滚中十分罕见的细腻，从这里你可以知道为什么Metallica老是被说具备”文化气质”。不多说，可以自己去看去听。
Fade To Black
by Metallica
Life it seems, will fade away
Drifting further every day
Getting lost within myself
Nothing matters no one else
I have lost the will to live
Simply nothing more to give
There is nothing more for me
Need the end to set me free
Things are not what they used to be
Missing one inside of me
Deathly lost, this can’t be real
Cannot stand this hell I feel
Emptiness is filling me
To the point of agony
Growing darkness taking dawn
I was me, but now he’s gone
No one but me can save myself, but it’s too late
Now I can’t think, think why I should even try
Yesterday seems as though it never existed
Death greets me warm, now I will just say good-bye
For Whom The Bell Tolls
by Metallica
Make his fight on the hill in the early day
Constant chill deep inside
Shouting gun, on they run through the endless grey
On the fight, for they are right, yes, by who’s to say?
For a hill men would kill, why? they do not know
Suffered wounds test there their pride
Men of five, still alive through the raging glow
Gone insane from the pain that they surely know
[chorus:]
For whom the bell tolls
Time marches on
For whom the bell tolls
Take a look to the sky just before you die
It is the last time you will
Blackened roar massive roar fills the crumbling sky
Shattered goal fills his soul with a ruthless cry
Stranger now, are his eyes, to this mystery
He hears the silence so loud
Crack of dawn, all is gone except the will to be
Now they will see what will be, blinded eyes to see