Few bands get the chance to determine the time and place of their demise, often petering out due to business issues, interpersonal conflicts, or failing health. To be fair, Megadeth have endured all three of the aforementioned issues over the course of a tumultuous career and, as such, it’s worth approaching their seventeenth and final album with a certain sense of gratitude that they ever made it this far.
The timing is good too. Coming off the back of two solid albums (2017’s Dystopia and 2022’s largely excellent The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!) Megadeth caps off the band’s career in fine form and, while it doesn’t always reach the heights of its immediate predecessor, it’s a fitting conclusion with a number of standout tracks across it’s runtime.
The album kicks off hard with the splenetic Tipping Point. A whirlwind of technical thrash, it finds the band working their way through the gears from a suitably frantic opening solo to the ferocious riffing of the verse and back again, even finding space for a little mid-tempo groove along the way. It’s an impressive start and, if the lyrics do not exactly set the world afire (“push me, I push you back”), they’re perfectly in keeping with the old-school vibe of the track. Speaking of old school, I Don’t Care condenses Dave’s anti-authoritarian instincts into a three-minute blast which, with its semi-spoken word vocal, sounds like a cross between Peace Sells… and Suicidal Tendencies – All in all, it’s an impressive opening gambit, with Dave and the band seemingly fired up for this final fling.
Having got the album off to a strong start, Megadeth let things slip on Hey God?! Based around a mid-tempo groove, it shines an unforgiving light on a set of lyrics that frankly acknowledge they have little to say. While, to its credit, the song gives drummer Dirk Verbeuren space to shine (and few could fault the solos traded by Dave and Teemu), it largely feels as if it’s here to make up the numbers, and it’s something of a surprise that Dave and fellow producer Chris Rakestraw allowed it to stand. Fortunately, Hey God?! is a relatively brief dip and waiting in the wings is the gloriously silly Let There Be Shred, which serves as a suitable epitaph to the band’s long-held ambition to be the hardest, the fastest, and the most technical of all the thrash bands. Nodding to the blistering Holy Wars with its electrifying opening riff, with perhaps just a touch of Phantom Lord thrown in for good measure, it’s a cracking thrash song that does much to live up to its title.
Wrapping up the first half of the album, Puppet Parade threatens to lyrically undermine its predecessor, with Dave worrying that “the party’s loud and the drinks are cold, but nothing dulls the pain”. Whether this refers to where he is now, or where he was when Megadeth’s ascent was all but undone by drugs, is hard to tell, but the track is given life by a suitably biting riff and an annoyingly catchy chorus, even if it does feel closer to Alice Cooper than the ferocious thrash of yore.
Opening the second half of the album, Another Bad Day once again finds the band paddling in mid-tempo waters, the track nodding to the melody of A Tout Le Monde with elements of Captive Honour in its chunky, post-chorus riffing. Dirk once again makes his presence felt with his thunderous intro to Made to Kill, a suitably crunchy thrasher that neatly combines This Day We Fight withTake No Prisoners. Blistering solos are the order of the day here and, once again, Dave and Teemu both step up, shredding throughout with gleeful abandon.
With the album racing past, Obey the Call once again slows the pace, the track boasting a strong melodic opening and chorus, neither of which would sound out of place on an early Alice in Chains album – albeit lacking the vocal harmonies that would have made it a stand out. Instead, it’s a solid if unspectacular number that feels like it should pave the way for something truly monumental. Unfortunately, it’s followed by the similarly mid-tempo I Am War, which suffers from a weak concept and uninspired lyrics. A hackneyed trope that might have been forgiven had it been delivered with the dizzying pace of the band’s early work, I Am War is a poorly executed effort and it comes as a relief when it gives way to The Last Note. With a spoken-word intro reminiscent of W.A.S.P.’s Crimson Idol, The Last Note offers the album’s most obviously autobiographical lyrics, trading the obfuscation of I Am War for a surprisingly candid glimpse into Dave’s fears for the future. A fitting conclusion to the album, it sees Dave wandering off into the sunset, uncertain of what will come next, but still defiant enough to keep his middle finger firmly raised.
As a bonus, the CD version of the album offers up Dave’s long-promised take on Ride the Lightning. More of a curio than anything, it is technically perfect, as we have come to expect of modern Megadeth, but it lacks the soul of Metallica’s version (not helped, one suspects, by the fact that this single cut probably cost more to do than the whole of the album from which it is taken). The solos are the highlight, of course, having been endlessly refined in the cauldron of Dave’s mind since it was written some forty-two years ago and overall, Dave and his band do a more than creditable job. More to the point, there’s a sense that, in performing this cover, Dave has finally let go of the nervous anger that led to the band’s formation in the first place – if this is indeed the case, then it truly is a fitting post-script to the Megadeth journey.
With Megadeth it feels very much like Dave set out to make a best of, with a number of songs referencing riffs and melodies from across the band’s storied past. For the most part it works, with standout tracks including Tipping Point, Let There Be Shred, and The Last Note. That said, it’s not an album without its flaws. Both Hey God?! and I Am War are lyrically and musically clumsy, to the point that it’s something of a surprise that they made the final cut, and you can’t help but wish that co-producer Chris Rakestraw had adopted a tougher stance. Overall, however, Megadeth brings the curtain down on an impressive career with a degree of class and we’ll leave the last word to Dave himself: “So, here’s my last will, my testament, my sneer, I came, I ruled, now I disappear. 7.5/10
