Tocp Megadeth

"Megadeth" is not a call for Armageddon. It's a name that was built 16 years ago upon a foundation of cold war politics, economic upheaval and cutthroat capitalism. When I left my previous band, I was looking for paper to write lyrics on because I was trying to keep myself from going insane on a four-day bus ride. I found a handbill from Senator Allan Cranston that was talking about the danger of nuclear armament. It said, "The power of megadeath can't be rid", and I thought - "What a fantastic name, it represents extreme power".

Dave Mustaine.

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…

Dave Mustaine revived Megadeth in the mid-2000s, remastering and reissuing his band's entire Capitol catalog and hitting the concert circuit in earnest. Greatest Hits is part of that revival. It's the second Megadeth best-of, replacing the one from five years prior, Capitol Punishment. Greatest Hits is an improvement, loaded with 17 selections, three more than its predecessor. There's also some fancy packaging and a hyperbolic "Love Live Megadeth" tribute written by Penelope Spheeris, the colorful director of The Decline of Western Civilization, Pt. 2: The Metal Years. It all adds up to a nice package, or more precisely, a sampler of Megadeth, from the band's pioneering thrash metal years to its later growing pains, with an unfortunate de-emphasis on the band's beginnings…

Megadeth guns for arena thrash success and gets it on Countdown to Extinction. Following the lead of 1991's Metallica, Megadeth trades in their lengthy, progressive compositions for streamlined, tightly written and played songs more conducive to radio and MTV airplay. Cries of "sellout" seem pointless when the results are artistically (as well as commercially) successful; songs like the mega-hit "Symphony of Destruction," "Skin O' My Teeth," "Foreclosure of a Dream," and "Sweating Bullets" are among the band's best.

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."