Megadeth - Endgame

Without a doubt, this was the single hardest album review for me to write.

I bought Megadeth's "Endgame" during the first month. For me, that's pretty rare; I actually tend to get it the day of the release. The main reason I held out was because of the lead-single off the album, "Headcrusher". I actually came close to just outright hating this song. To me, it was nothing more than Dave Mustaine doing some good guitar work, but destroying it with lyrics about getting your head crushed by some machine. It sounded a lot like the idea for "Thumb Hang" by Anvil for me.

On the first listen to the album, and by far the biggest flaw of the album, is the fact that you can virtually cherry-pick the riffs on this album from all of Dave's past work. Some "High Speed Dirt" mixed in with "Take No Prisoners", and a touch of "Mastermind"... basically a little bit off all of Megadeth's albums up to 1992. It was hard to get into these songs at first since I could basically play "name that riff".

That was then... this is now.

The best thing about this album is how quickly it actually grows on you. I wanted to start this review honestly, because as much as I love Dave for all he's done, I think it wouldn't be right to not acknowledge the flaws. But those flaws are actually minor in the end.

What you have is Megadeth not going back in time, but just releasing the album that was being built up since 2004's "The System has Failed" when Dave first came back to the world of metal. Every album since then has seen Dave and Co' step up their game and write fiercer and tougher songs. After 2007's masterpiece, "United Abominations", an album that rarely ever left my CD player OR my MP3 player, ANYTHING would fall in comparison to me on the first few listens.

The album starts of with "Dialectic Chaos", an instrumental in the vein of "Into the Lungs of Hell", but with an action-movie feel to it. It feels like this song could be theme song of "24" or Die Hard! Not only that, but the way it blends so well into "This Day We Fight!" is simply BRILLIANT! For all 3 minutes and 27 seconds, you're rushed through a nightmarish landscape of a battlefield, left to destroy the enemy "for what you believe". The same man who sung about the evil of men "turning plowshares into words" now cries out that we will "no longer turn the other cheek like a coward!" *Sniff* Our little man has grown up!

For more political intrigue, you have the title track "Endgame", a slow-moving, eerie, and electric track, based on the movie by Alex Jones. For those of you who don't know who Alex Jones is, he's a conspiracy theorist who believes the US Government was behind 9/11 and that the NWO is real. "Endgame" deals with a dystopian situation where all the nightmares explored in the movie come true and you must have the mark of the beast to live, and without proper ID a "legal US citizen can go to jail." But that's just silly! Wait, what's that about Arizona demanding papers to prove... you... oh.

Some of the best thrashers in 20 years are on here as well! "1, 320" is about drag racing, while "Bite the Hand" thrashes around with the best of them!

And "Headcrusher"? I take back every bad thing I said about it. It is BRILLIANT. The more you listen to it, the better it gets. It's a lot like "Crush 'em" only... well... BRUTAL!!!!!! Hell, if you don't wind up beating the crap out of someone while listening to it, you most likely weren't paying attention to it!!!

The album closes with "The Right to Go Insane". The dual guitars open the song with a setting sun and a man simply on the edge thanks to the economy going to pure hell. "How will I fact the day tomorrow/ If I can't Make it through today?", pleads Dave as he deals with staggering bills and a job that makes life tougher.

This album is great. To me, a great album is a lot like a great wine: It gets better with age.

The main reason I resisted writing a review for so long is because the hype around an image can easily blur how good the actual album itself is or isn't. Too often do reviews come out about an album is first released and is just a ringing endorsement and very little else. The album has been able to hold up easily on its own, and I dare say that, yes, it is better than "United Abominations". For me, on first listen, it had to compete against that, and the fact that one of my main loves of the album and this band is the political bent of it. Despite being disillusioned at first, they proved me wrong and I'm glad they did.

Folks, get this album. I'm giving it a 9 out of 10!

Megadeth - United Abominations

In terms of overdue reviews, this takes the cake only because this album came out while I was keeping this blog and I've pretty much have held off since it first was released because I wanted to sit down one day and really write it. Now that the year is almost over and I want to start compiling my Best of 2007 list, it's time.

This album finally graced store shelves, as well as my CD collection, on May 15, 2007. Dave Mustaine and Company (The Drover Brothers and new and former Black Label Society bassist James Lomenzo) have formed what is, without a doubt, the single most solid and best line-up since the Rust In Peace era of Ellefson, Menza, and Friedman!

Left with the task of not only providing a great follow-up to 2004's The System has Failed, an album that, overall, was met with mixed reviews (even from me), but also to ensure that the title of Thrash Metal legends was held firmly in their grasps, the result is nothing short of incredible; The single greatest Megadeth album since Rust in Peace!

Many will find a statement like that blasphemous, but in reality, this album is the best Megadeth disc since 1990.

The album starts off with "Sleepwalker", a thrash-metal riff attack that sees Dave and Glen Drover trading guitar leads and squeezing every single insane riff they can create melting into one of the fastest and heaviest songs of 2007! Singing about what he would love to do to certain reporters in his sleep, "Sleepwalker" sets the stage for the album.

"Blessed are the Dead" focuses on the four horsemen of the apocalypse, giving way to a song that rises, builds, and releases a great solid song! The album closer, "Burnt Ice", discusses an addiction to crack and the horrors of the drug. There are some ghosts of the past; "Never Walk Alone... A Call to Arms" opens with the same riff from "Vortex" and we there is an incredible re-recording of "A Tout Le Monde (Set Me Free)" with Cristina from Lacuna Coil! It is great to not only hear and have this version, but to also have Dave reclaim it after the tragic murder done in it's name.

Dave's political views, as well as his new religious outlook, dominate a large majority of this album.

"Washington is Next!" stands as one of the best songs written by Dave Mustaine in his career, taking a cue from jazz, the song rarely stops as the song flows, using the immortal lyrics "The quiet war has begun with silent weapons / And the new slavery is to keep the people / Poor and stupid, 'Novus Ordo Seclorus" and "How can there be any logic in biological war?" The song is a burning indictment at the current state of America and contemporary society, and tears away at everything from the war on the poor to the modern political landscape of today.

At the same time, I feel now I need to discuss my own political views and the reason this could, very easily, become an essay more than a review.

Dave Mustaine has shown more of a Republican leaning with this album. But, at the same time, his overall sense of political outrage is more potent than ever and the result is nothing short of amazing. It is safe to say that when most people here the words "President Bush" or "War in Iraq", we immediately feel repulsed, and simply wait to hear what failings and fault we are to hear next. Rarely is a positive opinion of either something we want to hear, or believe.

In "Washington is Next!", Dave mentions the "culture war". " Promote sex, and war, and violence in the kindergartens / Blame the parents and teachers; it’s their fault, 'Annuit Coeptis' / Attack the church dynamic, attack the family". When we get to the lyrics, "I am a King who had a dream with no idea / What it could mean and nobody could interpret", it's difficult to determine just what Dave is referring to. The song itself is about a nuclear war and a new world order simply taking over, but at the same time, it draws basis in real life to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the effect the U.S. Government has had on this fragile democracy of ours.

Dave Mustaine has said that this song is based on the Bible as well as his own personal beliefs, stating that he feels that America is the 8th False Throne. He states that he feels that the world is in it's final days and that Armageddon is coming close, and in Revelations 17:10, There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. A Biblical Scholar posting on a message board wrote this:

It speaks here of seven kings. In the beginning of the Revelation, Jesus is speaking to the seven churches but as His revelation unfolds, He makes us that have ears to hear, understand that the churches are following the foreshadowing of Israel and going after other gods just as they did. The King of the church was Jesus and now they have set up and appointed their own “kings”, there are different christ's and gospel's than the one Truth given by Christ and His Apostles, it is a “king” and a “christ” that they follow after in the lust of their flesh and the imagination of their heart.

Just as God brought them out of Egypt to serve Him and they chose to serve another god by making an idol of gold and saying that it had brought them out of Egypt and out of bondage, today, they also set up a new king that they want to serve with the flesh in a way that pleases them and not in spirit and truth.

Read the full text here.

When we arrive at "United Abominations", a proverbial can of worms are opened in terms of this. Someone from the UN dissected it better than I ever could, but basically the song praised the war in Iraq and declares that the UN is, in essence, the One World government mentioned and warned about in the Book of Revelations. I don't agree with the snippy tone he used, but he did make a ton of good points. The song itself is nothing short of amazing, offering a mix of what "Washington is Next!" has to deliver, adding a dose of heavy riffing and a bit of mid-tempo that is followed up beautifully by "Gears of War", but more on that later.

"Amerikhastan", though, throws a wrench into any argument that Dave is now hell-bent on supporting Bush. The song starts with lyrics "Recruting the ill-fated for 'The War'", it serves as a background to either America as it is, or an America where the Terrorists have won. It also mentions the horror that Bush and Cheney has done to America, as the Statue of Liberty has been tattooed as "Property of the USA, A subsidiary of Halliburton". Musically, it is beautifully arranged and offers a wonderful piece of music.

When all is said and done, politics mean nothing for this album. The very fact that my own political leanings are so far against what he says, and that I can not only listen to this album, but love it, and listen to it nearly non-stop for 6 months is a testament to not only his craft as a musician, but to his ability to write simply incredible lyrics!

This album stands tall and is a triumph to the writing ability of this band! It is amazing to sit back and listen to this album and enjoy the incredible song writing skills that are on display here. The production is top notch, everything is perfectly cued, and it is tough to argue that this album is anything less than great!

9.8 out of 10!

Megadeth - Warchest

Dave Mustaine has been a very, very, VERY busy man since 2004! Not only has he released 2 new albums since then, but also a comprehensive DVD, a concert DVD, a live album, a greatest hits, founded Gigantour, hired me once (lol), and has been to parts of the world he and Megadeth have never been before!

With such a large body of work, the fact that a massive Box Set entitled Warchest has been released is short of amazing.

As a die-hard Megadeth fan, it is safe to say that I own a good 90% of everything Megadeth has released over it's career. At the same time, I know there is plenty I don't own, especially in terms of those pesky singles, and the very idea of having a box set is short of a godsend. The track listing pleased me due to the otherwise large amount of either rare or unreleased material.

All of the tracks from studio albums are the remixed and re-masted takes from the Capitol Records albums, and sound incredible! Dave has listened to the fans and the tracks represented are the best of the best!

Onto the greatness of the un-released material! I can only assume Mustaine used a bit of spit-and-polish on a few of the session takes, eliminating some of the dirt and scratches when he turned the volume up. Hearing the session take from the "So Far, So Good... So What?"-era Megadeth of "Anarchy/Problems" sent chills down my spine as I heard a spirited band take on the Sex Pistols two best songs. The Casey McMackin demo of "Holy Wars…The Punishment Due" sounded like an early incarnation of what "Washington is Next!" from United Abominations became, and the inclusion of "Go To Hell" from the Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Soundtrack was a massive plus! Remastered audio was needed and it helped!

In terms of rare released tracks, finally having a copy of "Strange Ways" and "Duke Nukem" was worth the wait for an official copy.

In the end, the best part of this set is Disc 4, a 1991 show from London during the Rust in Peace tour. Hearing the band play live from that time... the only thing I can call that is heaven on CD! The "classic" Megadeth line-up shredding and ripping away at the very fabric that is speed metal, throwing in a cover of "Its Electric" by Diamond Head, proving that Dave did a better version than Metallica... AWESOME! Having decent live versions of "Take No Prisoners", "Lucretia", and "Rattlehead" are something that you really can't compare! The sound in impeccable and it has an air to it that would make you swear it was recorded just last night!

If you have heard tales of a band called Megadeth, of a skull with metal plates on his eyes on metal caps on his ears, a man with hooks through his mouth and a suit and a silk tie, then this is where the legend begins and lives! For those who have not only known of these feet's, but those of a large white rabbit, of wolves turning into women and others who cross the seas, for those who have also met the man behind mask. For the worshipers of the highest metal truth in the land.

My friends, you have arrived.

9.5 out of 10.