Megadeth: Megadeth Review – Conspiracy Theories and Combustible Fingers on Star Metallers | Megadeth

THere is a long goodbye, and then there is Megadeth’s retirement from the music industry. The thrash metal pioneers’ latest album and tour were announced last August, with an AI-assisted video and written statement that provided some classic excellence on the part of lead singer and sole original member Dave Mustaine. Never a man to hide his light under a bushel, he likened Megadeth’s decision to quit to a global catastrophe (“Some say this is the end of time”) and suggested the American band had “changed the world.”

Their decision to resign makes sense, given Mustaine’s health condition. Having beaten throat cancer and radial neuropathy, he now suffers from arthritis and so-called Dupuytren’s contracture — a thickening of tissue under the skin that causes the fingers to bend, otherwise known as metallic-sounding Viking disease — both of which hamper his ability to play the guitar. The call to end the band was made during the recording of their self-titled seventeenth studio album. But three months later, Mustaine announced that the announced farewell dates were just the beginning. The tour is scheduled to last “easily… three to five years.” So it seems that there is a good chance that Megadeth will still bid farewell to the world in the next decade.

However, there is a clear sense of finality to this new music. Rather than a complete return to the genre that their early albums helped birth, it effectively offers listeners a recapitulation of their career. Certain songs certainly confirm their status as progenitors of thrash metal, most notably the brilliant opening track Tipping Point, as well as Made to Kill and Let There Be Shred. The latter would be completely unbelievable if it weren’t musically powerful enough to make up for the lyrics “The day I was born, guitar in hand, the earth began to rumble with thunderous command… Let there be shredding!” (There are also images of fingers being burned, guitars screaming with joy as they are beaten to death, pretenders being destroyed, etc.)

On I Don’t Care, you get the punk tendencies that led Megadeth to cover Mayhem in the UK in 1988. What’s even more surprising is that there are tracks rooted in the more melodic style the band controversially pursued in the mid-to-late ’90s. If there’s some optimism about this – Cryptic Writings (1997) and Risk (1999) rarely rank high among Megadeth fan favorite albums – there’s also a sense that Mustaine confirms that he’s pretty good at turning his attention towards radio-friendly music, regardless of what he’s really known for: Puppet Parade in particular is well-written.

All of this is done with the kind of technical precision that Megadeth has long been known for: whatever the constant change in the band’s line-up – the previous members number 28 – contemporary guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari fits the band’s approach perfectly. But there are problems. The album’s second half drags noticeably, as if his method of summarizing his career extends to reminding listeners of the waning inspiration that has haunted Megadeth’s recent mid-to-middling releases: Obey the Call is musically dull and filled with lyrics about ghostly doll-makers controlling the evils of the world, reflecting Mustaine’s bizarre, conspiracy-driven worldview, his appearances on Infowars and all. It ends with The Final Note, which can’t be decided whether it’s aiming to tug at the heartstrings of long-time fans – “The final curtain comes down, a quiet end to it all, now just memories” – or heading into retirement with the middle finger held high: “My last will, my last will… my sarcasm”.

But this is not his last sarcasm. This comes with a bonus song in which Megadeth takes over “Ride the Lightning,” one of the few Metallica songs Mustaine contributed to before he was unceremoniously fired from the band in 1983. Seems like an odd way to wrap things up: why end an album that’s meant to celebrate your band’s legacy by raising the specter of you being fired from another band? It’s certainly not as if Megadeth’s version radically reinvents the song in a “that’s the way it’s done” style, besides it sounds more polished and growling. Is it about confirming his alleged ownership of some of Metallica’s early material? Or just to bring more attention to Megadeth’s latest album? But then, Dave Mustaine has rarely needed so much prodding to address the subject of his firing from Metallica over the course of more than 40 years. If nothing else, bringing it up one last time is a huge deal, as is the rest of Megadeth, good and bad.

Alexis listened this week to

Kavari – iron veins
The cobwebs of the new year are instantly blown away by the first track from Glasgow producer Kavari’s upcoming EP: trace elements of old-school hardcore, mid-90s Aphex Twin, industrial, but a finished product all their own.