The seventeenth and final album by thrash metal pioneers Megadeth has dropped. Simply titled Megadeth (and boasting one of the band's coolest-ever album covers), the album is pretty much exactly what I expected - a guitar riff-o-rama that's unfortunately hurt dramatically by Dave Mustaine's very limited vocal range and lack of lyrical invention.
This has been an issue with Megadeth's music for me since 2007's United Abominations. Mustaine's trademark snarl worked when he was a young, angry, troubled soul. His music had a sense of danger about it and his voice had the range and intensity to match the molten rage of his lyrics. You really got the sense that he meant what he was saying, good or bad. There was real conviction behind it. But from his mid-forties on he was no longer able to hit those signature screeches and wails, and thus the melodies lost the urgency they once had. Similarly, Dave's sardonic lyrical nihilism felt genuine in the early days, but began to feel performative as he aged. Somehow he never learned to replace that outmoded tone with wizened vulnerability and introspection, like James Hetfield did on 72 Seasons for example. Thus the subject matter of Megadeth lacks an emotional connection, particularly in the album's closer "The Last Note." What should be a poignant swan song is just another Megadeth track; there's no sense of melancholy or bittersweetness, it's just over. Then there's "I Don't Care," whose lyrics sound like a teenager wrote them and not a 64-year-old grown-ass man. After a certain age the youthful rebellion schtick becomes self-parody.
That's not to say there isn't plenty of cool guitar riffage on this record. Dave has never lost a step when it comes to his airtight rhythm guitar chops, and he makes full use of it here (Honestly I'd like to hear him do an instrumental album). The opening riff to "Tipping Point" is a midtempo groover that gives way to a double-time barrage, "Let There Be Shred" has some of the most pummeling stuff on the album, and on the aforementioned "The Last Note" we even get a bit of acoustic guitar work. New lead player Teemu Mantsyaari provides some fine solos even if they lack the distinctive personality Marty Friedman used to bring to the table, while drummer Dirk Verbeuren and bassist James LoMenzo provide a perfectly solid rhythmic foundation.
At a lean 41 minutes, Megadeth certainly doesn't overstay its welcome like the band's longest efforts The World Needs a Hero and Th1rt3en, but it also doesn't offer anything we haven't heard from them many times before. Generally I find that when a musical artist stops being influenced by other artists and becomes primarily influenced by themselves, their output tends to become stagnant. Along with later albums from AC/DC, Slayer, KoRn and Sevendust, Megadeth's discography from UA onward definitely falls into that category for me. Stylistically one would be hard-pressed to name which of their last seven albums any given song came from. And I know that for a lot of Megadeth's fans this is a feature, not a bug; they want to hear the exact Megadeth sound they expect to hear. But I prefer it when bands incorporate a little something new into their material instead of churning out the same product album after album.
As a bonus track Dave has included a cover version of Metallica's "Ride the Lightning," which he co-wrote all those years ago. While it's a very good cover and Dave plays some of the intricate lead parts more precisely than Kirk Hammett ever did, its inclusion here really just hammers home the fact that not one of this album's ten new songs is as good as that one. Considering this is Megadeth's last-ever album I was hoping to hear something unexpected - a riff, a song or a recording approach - that would make it stand out from the pack and announce itself as the band's final hurrah. Sadly Megadeth is just the last in a string of albums that mostly sound the same. It's an alright record but if I'm in the mood to listen to a Megadeth album I'm gonna choose Rust In Peace or Peace Sells over this one.
All that said, I cannot discount what a major influence Dave Mustaine's music was on my own for so many years. His riff-writing left an indelible mark, and for a while captivated me so thoroughly I had trouble finding my own voice in my songs. Megadeth provided a major chunk of the soundtrack to my teens and early 20s, and their best albums still hold up for me as all-time classics.
So thank you Dave, David, Marty, Nick, Chris, Gar, and the host of other talented musicians who made Megadeth such an important band for me over the decades.
I give Megadeth *** out of *****.
No comments:
Post a Comment