Megadeth

In 1990, Megadeth's career is at a dead end. After three aggressive Lps, remarkably consistent with their vision of hyper-fast metal, but unfortunately hampered by unprofessional production, Mustaine finds himself in dire straits, without a dollar to his name and battling more than one addiction. In 1989 he's even arrested for drunk driving.

Meanwhile, Metallica were steaming ahead like a freight train: they had already closed the first phase of their career by turning thrash inside out with "…And Justice For All" (1988), which had pushed the ideas of their first three masterpieces to their extreme consequences, and were about to enter their second phase with the "Black Album" (1991), which would carry them right up to the edge of the mainstream, breaking through to the MTV generation without fully renouncing their roots. A few years earlier both Slayer and Anthrax had released their masterpieces, and if you crossed the Atlantic to England, Iron Maiden had for years been racking up hit after hit and playing memorable world tours. In short, Mustaine is decidedly behind his "rivals", and history doesn't seem willing to give him another chance.

So the Megadeth leader tries to get back on his feet and, for the umpteenth time, overhauls the line-up, bringing in Marty Friedman on guitar and Nick Menza on drums, while confirming the trusty David Ellefson on bass. This is Megadeth's ideal line-up, with a production finally worthy of the band and a perfect mix of metal technique and punk fury. "Rust In Peace" (a clear play on "Rest In Peace") opens Megadeth's 1990s with a sound that's still typically eighties, as if Mustaine were trying to finally complete something — his perfect album — that he hadn't yet managed to finish.

The first two tracks are his manifesto, containing everything metal had said over the decade just ended that Mustaine hadn't yet managed to synthesize, effectively representing the swan song of classic thrash metal — in practice the last thrash album of the '80s rather than the first of the '90s. An iconic cover featuring Area 51 aliens kept hidden by the world's powerful (Gorbachev and Bush Sr. are recognizable), accompanied by the trademark smirk of the band's mascot Vic Rattlehead, and the job is done.

"Holy Wars…The Punishment Due" sounds as speedy as "Kill 'em All", before turning into a classic piece of anti-militarist thrash, where punk attitude and metal technique are joined by lyrics that on one hand could seem lifted from a teenage war comic, and on the other reveal a far from banal anti-militarism. A long instrumental intro played at the speed of light, and an alternation of speed and thrash that represents the peak of Mustaine's compositional skills.

"Hangar 18" — drawing once again on the Area 51 theme — is probably their masterpiece as well as the quintessence of the Megadeth sound, with a blazingly fast guitar riff followed by an inexhaustible string of adrenaline-fuelled solos — blending metal subgenres from power to progressive to thrash, right back to its true punk roots — still astonishing today. In particular the second instrumental section, a dizzying guitar rampage, belongs in the history books of metal. Throughout, the role of the two new recruits is fundamental.

Thrash metal becomes more traditional with "Take No Prisoners", fairly close to Anthrax, and with "Five Magics", closer to Metallica. The guitar intro of "Lucretia" (venturing into Van Halen territory) isn't easily forgotten, nor is the famous riff of "Tornado Of Souls", which once again sounds close to early Metallica.

The dizzying speed of "Poison Was The Cure" recalls some tracks by early Maiden (from "Purgatory" to "Iron Maiden"). The circle opened by the first track closes with "Rust In Peace… Polaris", a song that continues with the anti-militarist themes dear to Mustaine, this time focused on nuclear apocalypse. The ultimate bomb, Polaris, is ready to explode at the hands of the warmongers ("I'm a nuclear assassin, I'm Polaris, I'm ready to explode at the touch of a button"); riffs pile up one after another relentlessly, with incendiary lyrics that reveal how humanity invokes Polaris out of its own thinly veiled self-destructive urge.

Brutal yet at the same time well thought-out, produced and structured (unlike the early albums), "Rust In Peace" is Mustaine's mature masterwork and probably the pinnacle of his creativity.

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09/01/2022