Megadeth’s Final Album Review

[Image credit: Blake Armstrong ]

By: Mathew Manseau

Megadeth’s last album is one of the best that they have made in the past 20 years with a lot of great, memorable songs that blend the sounds of many different albums together.

Megadeth had clearly put a lot of effort into this final album, and has earned the number one spot on ARIA, which is an Australian music list that shows the top albums and songs. They had also sold over 70,000 copies of their album, while their previous album only sold 48,000 copies. For me, this is the best in years because even though the songs aren’t all perfect, they are definitely better than a lot of other albums they made, and the album keeps a very consistent flow. Usually, their albums have at least 1 or 2 songs that get skipped, but this one doesn’t have a ‘bad’ song. The songs I list are in order of my own preference, and there is a lot of bias that caused me to enjoy the album more than others.

My favorite song from the album is Let There Be Shred. The riffs are great, and the lyrics are very clearly unserious and made more out of passion. The song is about how vocalist and guitarist Dave Mustaine grew up with a guitar and learned to play. It really is impressive how throughout the issues he has faced such as Dupuytren’s contracture, a hand issue that causes his fingers to painfully stiffen, and severe arthritis. His vocals are still great especially after having throat cancer which made him unable to sing for a few years. Those issues alone make the album very impressive and how the whole band can keep up with how they used to play 43 years ago.

Puppet Parade is another great one that is about how people put on a fake version of themselves when they’re with other people. Although I think the song is more specific and Dave Mustaine  is talking about his own life and how he has to put up a persona when interacting with people or with how he treats past events such as the conflict between him and James Hetfield who kicked Mustaine out of their band because he was a destructive alcoholic.

Another Bad Day and Made To Kill are tied for me, they are both great with fantastic guitar work and choruses. I really enjoy the main riff to Another Bad Day, but I think Made To Kill has far better instrumentals with lyrics that are more preferable to me. The tie for me mainly comes from the first few seconds of Another Bad Day, I love the introduction and it reminds me of something on their album Super Collider which I personally think is in their top 5 albums. While Made To Kill has a quicker pace and sounds like something that would be on their 2016 album Dystopia which I feel is an almost perfect album with almost every song being outstanding, back to back.

The Last Note is another that reminds me of something off of Super Collider and it just makes me feel good and a little upset listening to it mainly since it is about the band being finished and nothing more for them to give their fans. It was written very well. 

Ride The Lightning (Cover) is fantastic, I really like how the instruments sound compared to the original by Metallica, of course Metallica’s version is better. But Megadeth did it very well excluding the vocals. The vocals are a bit questionable and inconsistent for this song but it still sounds great overall. I did hear a lot of backlash towards this song because Dave Mustaine has been known to claim that Metallica stole his music and that this is just him snapping back at them one last time. But both bands have come to terms with each other and even played together on stage so I don’t really think it is, it’s more of a tribute/showing appreciation towards them.

Obey The Call is yet another one that I think sounds similar to Super Collider, but it isn’t bad at all. It’s a very enjoyable song with really good imagery such as the intro having, “Cracked horizon and silent screams, there’s burned out cities that haunt my dreams. And there’s ghosts in the gears of the war machine, it feeds on faith but it bleeds gasoline.” The chorus is also great, I love the contrast of the lyrics being spoken and the chorus is sung.

Hey God?! Is another good one that is great throughout the entire song and with more vulnerable lyrics of Dave Mustaine speaking about his feelings of guilt throughout his life with his many mistakes and asking God for forgiveness.

I Am War is a great song where the lyrics kind of ruin it similar to another song off the album I will talk about that definitely ruins the song. For I Am War it just sounds like Dave Mustaine fronting as a “tough guy” which feels really corny and forced. Though the music itself does sound good.

Tipping Point is very mediocre, it’s not a good song but it’s also not bad. It’s just average and there’s not a whole lot for me to really say about it. It feels like it was supposed to have no lyrics and they were shoehorned in at the last minute. The first 30 seconds have great instrumentals but it kind of goes downhill as the song goes on.

I Don’t Care is definitely not great. It’s my least favorite throughout the album and one of my least favorite Megadeth songs solely from the lyrics. The riffs are shockingly some of the best from the album. But the lyrics really do ruin it with, “I don’t care if I’m out of line, I don’t care ‘cause this life is mine, I don’t care you don’t like what I say . . . you gotta know that I just don’t care” each line starts with “I don’t care” and some sort of smack back towards any criticism he has received which is a good concept but it’s very poorly executed and sounds uninspired which is ironic because that song specifically has received the most negativity out of the album. 

Megadeth’s last album will not be the end of the band since they will be on tour for another 3-5 years or until they physically cannot play anymore.