Warthur Although it does begin to flag a little towards the end, The System Has Failed is a reasonable enough comeback album for Megadeth which nonetheless doesn't quite scratch the itch. With another Bush in the White House, there's plenty of real-world political shenanigans for Dave Mustaine to comment on, and unlike his recent foot-in-mouth incidents a lot of what he has to say will probably resonate with most listeners. Still, even though Vic Rattlehead is back in his business suit, the album doesn't quite measure up to Rust In Peace, or Peace Sells... But Who's Buying? - it kicks off with good material, but the band don't quite maintain that momentum over the running time.

Kingcrimsonprog Megadeth’s tenth studio album The System Has Failed was a largely superb record that picked up the sound that the band had started with The World Needs A Hero and paired out all the commercialism, made the guitar tones heavier and dirtier and injected some classic Thrash Metal attitude into the wonderful modern metal that frontman and primary songwriter Dave Mustaine had been coming out with at the time.

Interestingly, while The System Has Failed sounds like a revitalized Megadeth record, it actually began its life as a solo album from Dave Mustaine, and was the first ever Megadeth release not to feature long time bassist David Ellefson. Despite this inconvenient fact, The System Has Failed is a hugely exciting Megadeth album with some serious highlights and astonishing guitar work.

Album highlights include the fast and thrash influenced ‘Kick The Chair,’ ‘Blackmail The Universe,’ and ‘Back In The Day,’ which are still to this day some of the band’s finest work and must listen stuff for all Megadeth fans and more than welcome in any live setlist. Fans who prefer the material that the band made in the 80s should definitely check those songs out.

Unfortunately the album doesn’t retain that exact level of sheer quality throughout, otherwise it would be one of the bands best albums, as it stands it is just a very good album but not an all time classic. The album certainly did spark an upward trend in Megadeth releases and the next two albums along with this helped fully restore the public’s respect for Megadeth which was somewhat challenged on some of their previous works.

For fans of the band’s melodic and slower works from the nineties, there are songs like ‘Tears In A Vial,’ and ‘The Scorpion,’ which are full of brilliant guitar and strong vocals.

Overall, The System Has Failed maybe shouldn’t be the first Megadeth album that you pick up and the band have made better albums, but when you do get yourself a copy you will not be all that disappointed, especially with the aforementioned thrashier tracks.

UMUR The System Has Failed is the 10th full-length studio album by American thrash metal/ heavy metal act Megadeth. It was actually more of a solo album by Dave Mustaine though as he was the only original member left in the lineup after bassist David Ellefson jumped ship. So The System Has Failed ended up being recorded by Dave Mustaine and a cast of session musicians. Former Megadeth guitarist Chris Poland was brought in to play some solos on the album, the bass is handled by Jimmy Sloas and the drums are played by Vinnie Colaiuta ( Frank Zappa, Sting...etc.).

The music on The System Has Failed is the usual mix between melodic thrash metal and more traditional heavy metal. Compared to the preceding album The World Needs a Hero (2001), which I personally found to be a great disappointment, The System Has Failed is a bit better. The quality is good throughout, and while the songwriting isn´t the most inspired or exciting thing I´ve heard from the band, it´s certainly an improvement over the weak predecessor. It´s a consistent album with a few highlights. The harder hitting Thrash metal tracks like the opener Blackmail The Universe, Kick the Chair and Truth be Told are my preferred poison, while I to be honest find some to the more traditional melodic heavy metal songs a bit trivial. Not bad just average. The new musicians don´t mean that much for the sound on the album IMO, and it´s actually a bit of a disappointment that you don´t notice a drum capacity like Vinnie Colaiuta more. Chris Poland deliver a couple of good but not outstanding solos but again he isn´t Marty Friedman.

The production is pretty good and full. Again an improvement over the lifeless production on the predecessor.

All in all The System Has Failed display a Megadeth in better shape, than I could have hoped for. It´s definitely not a favorite of mine and I don´t listen to this album very often, but a 3 star rating is deserved.

Mjöllnir In the months before this album came out, I was pretty strongly involved in the online metal community. Reading all the news articles, watching the artwork take shape and at last sampling the sound of the album with “Kick the Chair”. A further taste after the leaking of “Blackmail the Universe” convinced me that indeed Megadeth was truly back!

After devoting a lot of listening time to it, unfortunately the album does fall short of expectations. While light years ahead of the despairingly bland “The World Needs a Hero”, the cookie cutter monotony is replaced by glaringly obvious filler. The first track does indeed harken back to “Rust in Peace” with high speed and energy, and a shifting structure reminiscent of “Holy Wars”. The following track cuts back on the venom in lieu of tame hard rocking Megadeth more akin to their mid 90s output, before “Kick the Chair” returns to more aggressive ground. All good stuff but the album very quickly becomes a mixed bag after this.

“The Scorpion” is an odd one to work out and feels a little laborious, before “Tears in the Vial” brings us sharply back to the standard ‘deth vibe with better results. “I Know Jack” is a head scratching and seemingly pointless segue while the next two tracks are just a little cheesy, “Something That I’m Not” being an obvious dig at Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, but lacking the stellar composition of tirades like ”Liar” (from the outstanding “So Far, So Good...So What!”. “Back in the Day" is a paean to the 80s metal scene, and acquits itself better but has an off putting “chanting" mid section. Things warm up again for “Truth Be Told" with another slamming number that works.

The final three tracks sadly seem to lack any cohesive focus or even a good riff or two, with “Shadow of Deth” seeing Mustaine reciting Psalm 23 with a dreadfully cheesy vocal effect bringing to mind the spoken part of “Five Magics” over some uninspired music. The successes seem to be when Dave sticks to what he does best and doesn’t veer off into uncharted territory, those songs gluing a messy album together. Dave got former (seems like another lifetime now!) guitarist Chris Poland’s to provide a few solos, and they are worth a mention. They add some much needed colour and bring in a feel of those first two albums enough to distract a little from some of the awkward material here. Not a bad album by any means, but noticeably patchy and in any case a welcome return from the band and I think Dave had stronger songs up his sleeve for the next lot of albums.