Megadeth : "s/t"

 Here we are at the last Megadeth album. Better to hang it up than besmirch their legacy.  I used to love these guys, but "Youthanasia" was the last album I got into. The opening track feels like they are pretty focused on the kind of thrash that works best for them. I think they are the epitome of a band who struggle to find themselves when the creative head of the band got sober. Let's face it, these guys are pretty much just the Dave Mustaine show.  "I Don't Care" goes back to the more hook-focused accessible writing that defined "Countdown to Extinction." It works well enough here. Then things begin to take a turn.

"Hey, God' works as a song, but lyrically it's kind of dumb, but it seems brilliant compared to "Let There Be Shred," which is a display of stupidity so profound that it is the sort of thing that makes metal hard to be taken seriously when presented in this context. Even if you just like jerking off to shredding, it is done more tastefully at other points on this album.  None of the songs on this album comes across as being dark, which is part of the problem, but at least "Puppet Parade" can be taken more seriously. His voice sounds better than some of the previous albums from the past 10 years here. There is still plenty of the 80s flowing through the veins of these songs, so much so that "Another Bad Day" could almsot be a Dokken song. But it works well enough for what the band does, and it feels like they are touching upon previous corners of their legacy. 

The drummer gets to shine on "Made to Kill," which feels like it could have come from "So Far, So Good, So What' which is my favorite album by the band. This shows that everything can still click into place for the band when they stop fucking around. "Obey the Call" finds them continuing to fire off another banger at optimum function. I am ok with the 80s dripping from the riff that leads into "I am War" as the rest of the song is killer and what you want from this band. "The Last Note' also works well at upholding their legacy. Things come full circle with their take on "Ride the Lightning." I was expecting 'Fight Fire With Fire." The difference being Mustaine should have tracked these vocals in 1988, and it might have held up better against what James did, but I would not have been opposed to him releasing an album of all the Metallica songs he helped write jsut to hear the differences. "Let There Be Shred' is really the only sour moment on the album, and it is balanced out by the moments where they really knock it out of the park so I will round it up to a 9.5 and see how it grows on me. 

pst21