Megadeth

After his exit from Metallica, Dave Mustaine regrouped with his own band on this debut album, accentuating his own chaotic, driving rhythm guitar work and careening, lightning-fast solos. The music here is as raw as Megadeth gets, and that can be both good and bad - Megadeth's later precise, complex riffing and composition aren't completely developed, but the music is performed with a great deal of energy, while Mustaine's vocals (never his strong point) are amateurish at best. Highlights include a retooled version of Nancy Sinatra's "Boots" and "Mechanix," a Mustaine composition written with Metallica, which turned into the latter's "The Four Horsemen."

Arguably Megadeth's strongest effort and a classic of early thrash, Peace Sells combines a punkish political awareness with a dark, threatening, typically heavy metal world-view, preoccupied with evil, the occult, and the like. The anthemic title track and "Wake Up Dead" are the two major standouts, and there is also a cover of Willie Dixon's "I Ain't Superstitious," which takes on an air of supernaturally induced paranoia in the album's context. The lines between hell and earth are blurred throughout the album, and the crashing, complex music backs up Dave Mustaine's apocalyptic vision of life as damnation - his limited vocal style is used to great effect, growling and snarling in a barely intelligible fashion under all the complicated guitar work. Vital, necessary thrash.

Megadeth’s explosive new album featuring twelve new songs from the titans of thrash metal! Produced by Dave Mustaine and Chris Rakestraw, the follow-up to the critically acclaimed, Grammy® award winning album Dystopia will melt Megadeth fans’ minds worldwide with songs like “We’ll Be Back,” the new radio hit “Killing Time” and “Night Stalkers” – the latter of which features icon Ice T.

With Youthanasia, Dave Mustaine began moving Megadeth away from its thrash roots, incorporating synthesizers into their sound and writing subtle, textured songs. Cryptic Writings continues this evolution, which unfortunately reads better than it plays. Megadeth doesn't quite have the skill or imagination to craft such ambitious material; they sound better playing thrash, which they only occasionally do on Cryptic Writings. Essentially, the band sounds tired and listless instead of reflective, especially since the production is so slick. It's admirable that the group is attempting to move forward, but the music simply doesn't resonate.

"So Far, So Good… So What!" is the most underrated thrash album by Megadeth and is often neglected for their other much hyped albums "Peace Sells…" and "Rust in Peace"; it really doesn’t get the attention and praise it so richly deserves since it is one of those thrash records which managed to break free from the monotony and mediocrity of a large percentage of 80s thrash.

A sobered-up Mustaine returns with yet another lineup, this one featuring ex-Cacophony guitar virtuoso Marty Friedman and drummer Nick Menza, for what is easily Megadeth's strongest musical effort. As Metallica was then doing, Mustaine accentuates the progressive tendencies of his compositions, producing rhythmically complex, technically challenging thrash suites that he and Friedman burn through with impeccable execution and jaw-dropping skill. Thanks to Mustaine's focus on the music rather than his sometimes clumsy lyrics, Rust in Peace arguably holds up better than any other Megadeth release, even for listeners who think they've outgrown heavy metal. While the whole album is consistently impressive, the obvious highlight is the epic, Eastern-tinged "Hangar 18."

The System Has Failed marks a return from the dead for Megadeth – and quite a glorious return, it must be said. When bandleader Dave Mustaine was diagnosed in early 2002 with radial neuropathy - strained nerves in his left arm and hand - the snarling guitar shredder was forced to disband his once groundbreaking group after nearly two decades of activity. Granted, it wasn't that big of a loss at the time, chiefly so because Megadeth had long passed its prime. The band's key recordings date back to the speed metal era, from 1986 (the year of Peace Sells, Reign in Blood, and Master of Puppets) to 1992 (the year Megadeth, like Metallica a year earlier, made a distinct, more commercial shift, releasing Countdown to Extinction - to the dismay of many longtime fans). Following Countdown, Megadeth struggled…

After leaving Capitol and losing longtime guitarist Marty Friedman, Megadeth felt that a retooling was in order. Risk had been the culmination of their move toward commercial accessibility, so much so that the album engendered a backlash among fans. So, they attempted to craft a more metallic record with The World Needs a Hero, going so far as to resurrect early-years mascot Vic Rattlehead for a gory cover that just screams heavy metal. And The World Needs a Hero does indeed prove to be the band's heaviest offering in quite some time, certainly much more so than Risk. In fact, fans who just want to hear the group play straight-up metal will probably find this their best album since Rust in Peace or Countdown to Extinction - and Dave Mustaine tries to conjure memories of both…

The release of 2009's Endgame brings with it a startling realization: if first-generation thrash metal fans had been polled about which of the genre's "Big Four" - Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth - would prove to be the most resilient and consistently prolific over the next quarter century, the only sure-fire consensus would probably have been "well, anyone but Megadeth!" And yet, 12 studio albums and 150-plus songs later - more than any of the other three have managed - that's exactly what's come to pass. It hasn't been easy, and it's rarely been pretty along the way, but despite a few weak efforts, mostly self-inflicted controversy, and no end to verbal diarrhea, none of those other platinum-busting thrash titans have been as productive as Dave Mustaine's bunch - all of which stands as a testament to the man's stubborn drive to prolong Megadeth's career against all odds…

Megadeth's 13th studio album, and first since 2001’s The World Needs a Hero to utilize the talents of bassist/founding member Dave Ellefson, was produced by Johnny K (Staind, Disturbed) and features a combination of newly composed tracks, along with older cuts written years ago but never put to tape. Darker, heavier, and more immediate than 2009's Endgame, Dave Mustaine's snarling vocals ride higher in the mix this time around, but fans need not fear, as his fleet fingers are still possessed with the power to conjure the dead. Much of the aptly named Th1rt3en feels vintage, from the familiar political themes on “We the People” and the tightly wound, Dio-esque riffing on “Public Enemy No. 1” to the soft, melodramatic military snare intro of “Never Dead,” which eventually explodes into a wicked blast of retro-thrash that feels positively invigorating, not redundant…