By Andrew Bansal
Metal heavyweights Megadeth have had an eventful past few years, to say the least. It started with the release of their 12th studio album Endgame in 2009, the first featuring Chris Broderick on guitar, then the reunion with longtime bassist David Ellefson which led to them doing the Rust In Peace 20th anniversary tour in the right earnest. The first run of this tour was with Testament and Exodus, and got the ball rolling for a never-ending touring cycle that included two more US tours in support of the Rust In Peace anniversary, then the Big 4 dates, the resurrection of Gigantour, and ending with another anniversary tour, this time for the 20th anniversary of Countdown To Extinction. Somewhere along the line, a new studio album called ‘Th1rt3en’ was also put out. The focus on the last two albums was largely lost as the band got caught up in these anniversary tours and what not. Come 2013, Megadeth has moved on to Tradecraft, a label created by Universal Music for Dave Mustaine, and today on June 4th released their 14th studio effort, ‘Super Collider’.
A lot of people hated on ‘Th1rt3en’, and even though it wasn’t memorable by any means, it made for a good few listens. I enjoyed the band’s throwback to the good part of their 90s era albums. So, contrary to the popularly prevalent ‘love to hate’ attitude towards Mustaine and his band which has led to extremely low expectations from the band’s newest effort amongst most people, I was hoping for a solid release with a longer lasting impact this time, and as I do with pretty much every album I’m eagerly waiting for, I avoided the hype/hatred around the ‘single’ releases on the internet, and earlier today I finally got the chance to experience the album in the right manner, by listening to it in full.
‘Kingmaker’ actually gives the album a decent start. It’s not a thrash tune by any stretch of the imagination but it’s a presentable, above average mid-tempo heavy rock song, generic in many ways but enjoyable all the same. The title track is similar in that regard, but leans towards the softer, more ‘radio friendly’ side of rock music, which may be appreciated on a broader level by people who still listen to radio, but not necessarily by Megadeth fans. Usually, the first couple of tracks set the tone for the rest of the album and lay the foundation, but alas, I came to learn that Super Collider implodes rather rapidly after you’re done listening to the title track.
Normally, mediocre lyrics don’t bother me as much if the music is good enough to let the listener ignore that flaw, but when the lyrics are as bad as the ones in the songs ‘Burn!’, ‘Built For War’ and ‘Off The Edge’ and the music is nowhere near strong, I simply can’t overlook the comic tragedy that surrounds these songs. Lines like ‘Burn Baby Burn!’, ‘Built for war, are you looking at me, you want some more?’ and ‘Crazy, I’m going crazy!’ are just hilariously bad and I am stunned at the childishness exhibited by Mustaine through his words here. What happened to the Mustaine who came up with all those complex, unorthodox and unconventional meshes of rhythm and lead guitar parts, to go with hard-hitting lyrics that decorated the Megadeth albums of the past? There’s hardly anything of note on this entire album in the name of guitar solos and absolutely no interplay between Mustaine and Broderick. Having achieved an undeniable level of success doing what he does best, it baffles me to see Mustaine try to make Megadeth into a radio rock band. Quite often, musicians and creative artists in other fields release their work and give it their full backing, as they should, but some of their work makes you wonder, ‘What were they thinking?’ Super Collider is one such moment in the life of Megadeth. Why, just why is Dave Mustaine attempting to become the Justin Bieber of heavy metal?
To make matters worse, the one and only David Draiman features on the next song ‘Dance In The Rain’. The song makes for decent listening for its first three-and-a-half minutes with some neat solos thrown in for good measure, but as soon as the Draiman segment kicks in, I feel like throwing up. It’s completely unnecessary and ruins what could have been the best song on the album. I have no idea why this guy keeps popping up out of nowhere to do guest vocals for any and every big band these days. It makes no sense to me, and again, it’s one of those ‘What were you thinking?’ moments. Draiman also sings on the song ‘Forget To Remember’, but the song is so bland that he can’t ruin it any further, even with his vocals, plus his ‘singing’ contribution in that one is minimal.
‘Beginning Of Sorrow’ is yet another forgettable track on this album, while ‘The Blackest Crow’ does offer some interesting variation to start with, as the mandolin and violin elements are infused into it. But the same generic bland heavy rock style of songwriting forms the meat and potatoes of the song, which is a pity. In fact, that can be said about pretty much every song on the album. There are some cool intro pieces, interludes and little segments splattered throughout, but the actual core parts of the songs are weak and toothless. Thankfully, the album does end on a great note with its best track, the lively, heavy and very guitar-oriented song ‘Don’t Turn Your Back’ coming in as the saving grace, followed by a cover of Thin Lizzy’s ‘Cold Sweat’, a very nice throwback to the early days of Megadeth when they used to include covers in the standard edition track lists of their studio albums.
I’ve made it extremely clear in my past articles on this site that I’m a huge Megadeth fan, and that the band has done more than sufficient amount of great work in their career already for me to always remain a fan. Unlike one of their Big 4 counterparts, Megadeth will never fade away, whether it be my own memory or that of my computer. But, barring the good moments that are very few and far between, Super Collider is an embarrassment in every sense, and arguably the worst album of the band’s career so far. Mustaine keeps saying in interviews that he doesn’t want to repeat the sound of past albums, hence the supposed change in musical direction, but perhaps he doesn’t realize that Super Collider is nothing but ‘Risk Reloaded’, and he might as well have called it that. I would rather listen to Risk than this new album. There, I said it.
It’s a real pity because, for the first time in a long while, Megadeth seem to have a stable band lineup with Ellefson, Broderick and Drover in their ranks, but it certainly doesn’t seem like they were allowed too much creative input into the songwriting on Super Collider. Except for ‘Kingmaker’, ‘Don’t Turn Your Back’ and the Thin Lizzy cover, I don’t think I’ll want to ever hear the band play anything off of Super Collider in live shows, and all I’ll do now is wait patiently for the Youthanasia 20th anniversary tour to come around in 2014.
Rating: 4/10
Record Label: Tradecraft/UMe
Release Date: June 4th 2013
Track Listing:
1. Kingmaker
2. Super Collider
3. Burn!
4. Built For War
5. Off The Edge
6. Dance In The Rain (feat. David Draiman)
7. Beginning Of Sorrow
8. The Blackest Crow
9. Forget To Remember
10.Don’t Turn Your Back…
11.Cold Sweat (Thin Lizzy cover)
Links:
megadeth.com
facebook.com/Megadeth
twitter.com/Megadeth
youtube.com/MegadethTV