What Even Is Thermatology? — “Five Magics”, Rust In Peace (1990)
Let me introduce myself. My name is Bolu Oshuntolu, I’m a rising college junior, and I really like heavy metal. I played piano (not necessarily by choice) from kindergarten to the summer before I started college, even though I really wanted to be playing the guitar. Unfortunately when I was a kid, my parents were told that my hands were too small for it. Strange, but whatever. That summer, two years ago now, I decided to finally buy myself a bass guitar and an electric guitar and teach myself how to play. By the end of my freshman year, I decided that the guitar was my true love.
I didn’t know anything about the world of metal or rock music at all until September of 2021, when I found out about Metallica’s Blacklist on Apple Music, a compilation of covers of songs from their self-titled worldwide smash hit. It was meant to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Black Album, as it’s commonly called. I decided to listen to the source material first, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. My life changed course entirely once I first heard “Enter Sandman”: I might as well demarcate my life into BM (Before Metallica) and AM (After Metallica). My taste rapidly evolved and expanded as I was introduced to the likes of Megadeth, Black Sabbath, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple just to name a few.
With all of this, you would think that I would start this thing off with a Metallica song or album, but I’d like to talk about something much less known to the uninitiated: “Five Magics”, from Megadeth’s Rust In Peace. I could talk at length about the history of the band (especially as a Metallica diehard), but a lot of that information is out there already and I’d rather focus on the music itself (although I might do some deep dives at a later point). This song is probably the most underrated track on the masterpiece that is Rust In Peace, which is insane because most bands would kill to have the most underrated track on arguably their best album be this good (I only say arguably because Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying? is tied with RIP for my favorite Megadeth album). A fair reason for it not being talked about nearly as much as I think it should be is the fact that the song takes like two minutes out of its approximately six minute runtime to actually get off the ground and into the first verse. That’s definitely not most people’s cup of tea, but I personally think it kinda rules. The interplay between Dave Mustaine and Marty Friedman’s guitars and Dave Ellefson’s bass around the first ascending riff is absolutely brilliant, and really helps build up an air of mystery that is quite fitting when you think about the subject matter of the song. Speaking of which, it’s not particularly complex, and like a lot of other famous metal tracks, it’s based off a fantasy book. This one’s a little on the nose: “Master of the Five Magics”, by Lyndon Hardy. As you can guess, it’s about a guy who has to become the master of the ‘five magics’: thaumaturgy, alchemy, sorcery, wizardry, and magic, in order to save a kingdom from an evil prince. Yeah, they sound pretty redundant, but they actually have their own plot-relevant nuances. I’m not getting into all that here, but feel free to check the Wikipedia page about it.
Dave Mustaine decided to take some creative liberties when writing the lyrics, changing ‘thaumaturgy’ to ‘thermatology’, which was honestly a stroke of genius because it just flows so much better, as well as changing ‘magic’ (waste of space) to electricity. It’d definitely be a lot funnier (read: worse) if he hadn’t. Anyways, the whole song is basically a synopsis of the book, which is great if you feel like listening to heavy metal instead of reading a story. I’ll let you guys know if I ever get around to it, but don’t hold your breath.
Regarding the actual musical content, the amount of changeups and deviations from the norm amidst the song are what make it so special to me. Marty Friedman’s killer lead breaks throughout the verse section sound like he’s just tearing the song to shreds (which he excels at), and they serve to beautifully decorate Dave Mustaine’s description of the story. After the last solo break begins the really funky 5/8 section, the timing of which doesn’t really make sense until you actually try to play it. We get another killer solo from Marty here, with a walkup riff that mirrors the initial riff that we got very familiar with in the first two minutes of the song. All of this is before Nick Menza’s killer double bass during the walkdown that leads into the pre-chorus. He legitimately had calves of steel, rest in peace. This double bass does an amazing job of accentuating the punchy one liners that Dave repeats during the final verse. I now feel an obligation to share the “Five Magics” soundcheck video with you, because the amount of energy that Menza puts into this song will blow your mind.
The reason why I think that this video is so important to understanding both this song and Megadeth as a band is because 1) I believe this is the only video of the “Golden Age” lineup of the band performing this song live and 2) you really get up close and personal with the members of the band who aren’t Dave Mustaine for once. Shoutout to the cameraman. No YouTube cover could ever live up to the raw talent put on display here. Which isn’t a diss to YouTube guitarists (I couldn’t do it either) but you just can’t beat the original. My favorite part of the video is 4:07, where the band goes into the last verse. Just look at how Nick massacres the drum kit. As a guitarist, I absolutely love watching drummers who know what they’re doing.
I believe I’ve said everything I can say about this song without getting too esoteric. I don’t think I could ever fully do this song justice (same with basically every song or album I plan on talking about) but I hope this convinces you to give it a real chance.
Happy listening,
Bolu
