AtomicCrimsonRush Megadeth’s albums are hit and miss affairs often but “Rust In Peace” hits the target on every song. The riffing is incredible, with sharp and technical brilliance throughout. The percussion is outstanding and everything is brought together with the inspired vocals of Mustaine.

Quintessential Megadeth is found here on such genius lightning speed lead solos as ‘Hangar 18’. I have the tablature of this in a metal mag and its almost impossible to follow along. The technical expertise of fret melting hammer ons and sweep picking is astonishing. On the live DVDs Mustaine is able to replicate this and it is unbelievable. It would have to be one of my favourite metal songs, the lead soling at the end is phenomenal.

‘Five Magics’ is another very complex shredder but the band have even performed this live. ‘Take No Prisoners’ is another melodic metal highlight but for me one of the most awesome displays of riffing is found on ‘Holy Wars…. The Punishment Due’. All Megadeth addicts know this well and they should as it is the band at their absolute best.

Overall “Rust In Peace” is essential listening with enough variation on thrash riffs to hold the interest.

Warthur This is the first Megadeth album where they didn't change producers partway through the process, which I suspect has a lot to do with its success; the band are able to take full advantage of a bedrock of stability they hadn't previously enjoyed in order to deliver the finest album of their career. Lyrically, the album is all over the place, with subjects ranging from ruminations on the Northern Ireland conflict, pollution and nuclear war to comic books, cheesy fantasy novels and UFO conspiracy theories, whilst musically speaking the band deliver some of the most technically polished thrash they would produce. There are good reasons why this is one of the highest-scoring albums on the site, and it more than deserves the acclaim it receives.

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.

Stephen Thirteen is surely ain't a bad luck number for Megadeth. Not only they regain the long time bassist, David Ellefson, on board, but this album received a mainly positive reception from the press and fans and sold well in the first week just like its predecessor, 'Endgame'. Some complains I heard is it contains too many older materials, signifying a lack of new ideas in Mustaine's mind, and his voice is struggling to match his peak when trying to emulate the height of Countdown/Youthanasia era.

My personal answers to those two negative views are songs that haven't made to the album yet deserved to be heard, reworked, or included because not all people can afford to buy everything they released; and the second, aging process is a phase that every singers must experience, we can't expect one singing exactly like his youth today, and I didn't think Mustaine sounds horrible here, in fact, the real strength of Megadeth's music isn't really the clear vocal but his gruntly roar, packed with killer guitar riffs and solos.

There are lots of enjoyable songs inside, especially for fans of heavy metal/hard rock era of Countdown/Youthanasia such as 'Sudden Death', 'Public Enemy No 1', or 'New World Order'. For fans of 'Rust In Peace', the riffs oriented thrashy tracks like 'Never Dead', 'Fast Lane', 'Black Swan', or 'Wrecker', should fill the gap. I must admit there are several let down such as 'We The People', 'Guns, Drugs, & Money', or 'Millennium of The Blind' aren't my fave at all, but the rest such as 'Whose Life', 'Deadly Nightshade', or the ballad, '13' are quite good.

I guess Megadeth has accomplished something here, especially to quench the thirst of oldschool fans. I myself enjoyed this one a lot and I think it's the best they made since 'Youthanasia'. Not that I dislike 'Endgame', that one is also a strong album, but this one is personally better for me. Around 85% deserved and a big applause for Megadeth.

Stooge Among the classic Megadeth albums that spanned the first decade of their recording career (1985-94), this one sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. I’m sure part of that has to do with one of their least stable lineups, with Jeff Young and Chuck Behler now on lead guitar and drums respectively. While not quite the players that Chris Poland and Gar Samuelsson were, the new duo certainly holds their own on their lone Megadeth studio album.

The version I own is the 2004 re-issue, when Mustaine felt the need to tweak with the whole Megadeth catalog. Though I haven't heard the original version in years, I think this version sounds nice. From what I can remember, two of the most notable changes were increasing the volume of horns in the intro of "Into The Lungs Of Hell", and he also added an extended guitar intro for "In My Darkest Hour".

This album starts incredibly with the pair of "Into The Lungs Of Hell" and "Set The World Afire". What energy!! "Into The Lungs Of Hell" is a no-nonsese, let 'er rip-style of instrumental. Spacious riffing pushes the focus on some high-octane leads. Contrasting with that approach, "Set The World Afire" contains some of the coolest riffs in the Megadeth discography. I think it might have been the first song Mustaine wrote for Megadeth, and thankfully it made the cut for this album after being omitted twice. Closing tracks "Liar" and "Hook In Mouth" bring similar levels of aggression, especially in Mustaine's vocal performances ("Liar" being inspired by troubles with ex-bandmate Poland).

With the third cover song in as many albums, Megadeth opt for a more practical choice with the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy In The U.K.". It's very loyal to the original aside from some allowable deviations (swapping U.S.A. for U.K. being one). Sex Pistols' Steve Jones even guests on the track.

I’d say the main difference between this album and Peace Sells is that there is a slight tradeoff in technicality in favor of more melody. "Mary Jane", "502", and "In My Darkest Hour", which may be some of the most melodic songs Mustaine had penned at the time, are good examples of this. Each one is fairly accessible despite still very-much being rooted in thrash. Mustaine sings throughout most of these tunes (as opposed to his normal growl), and does a solid job too.

Excellent thrash album well worth picking up!

Kingcrimsonprog Megadeth’s That One Night: Live In Buenos Aires is arguably the band’s finest live effort and certainly one of their best DVDs. The band are absolutely on fire in terms of performance and energy, the crowd are going wild for the band and the setlist is superb, what more could anyone ask for in a concert ?

In terms of the actual DVD; the Audio/Visual quality is top notch and the whole performance is captured well, with a good job made of the mixing, camerawork and editing. Everything is utterly professional and well handled, nothing is cheesy or over the top which just allows the music to do the talking.

Surprisingly; apart from frontman Dave Mustaine, even though the band’s line up at the time didn’t feature any musician responsible for the albums from Rust In Peace – Cryptic Writings, or indeed David Ellefson who was on every single Megadeth album until The System has Failed, the band put down a storming performance and seem to be at the top of their game, reveling in their success and fired on by the manic crowd.

(Then) New members Glen Drover on guitar, James MacDonough on Bass and on Shawn Drover on Drums are all great additions to the band, and it isn’t difficult to see why Glen lasted another studio album and Shawn remains with the band to this day.

The concert includes all the classic Megadeth material you would expect like ‘Peace Sells…,’ ‘Holy Wars… The Punishment Due,’ ‘Symphony Of Destruction,’ and ‘In My Darkest Hour,’ as well as some less played numbers such as ‘I’ll Be There,’ and the superb ‘Set The World Afire.’

Additionally, their then new The System Has Failed record is well represented and the songs fit well into the set along side all the fan favourites.

That One Night’ was filmed in 2005 and released in 2007 and is still a brilliant live document and perhaps unsurpassed by later releases. I remember being hugely impressed with it when it was new, and watching it back now my opinion has not changed at all, which is surely a good sign. All Megadeth fans should all consider picking up a copy, this is an utterly fantastic concert and would serve as a fine introduction to the band. I highly recommend it.

Kingcrimsonprog Megadeth have a lot of DVDs on the market now; from video collections and documentaries, to bonus DVDs, to official concerts like this and ‘That One Night,’ and ‘Rust In Peace Live,’ to their segments on multi-band DVDs like Gigantour and The Big Four, as well as what I suspect are unofficial DVD’s like ‘Head Crusher,’ ‘Alive In USA 2008,’ ‘Megadeth Live,’ and ‘Metal Symphonies.’

When choosing a Megadeth DVD then, you really are spoiled for choice. In my opinion this and That One Night are the two best options, which provide longest concerts with the most definitive set lists, also with the best sound and visual qualities.

Rude Awakening finds Megadeth at the end of the first period in their career, just before the break-up and before the reunion which saw the band traveling back into the territory of Thrash Metal once again, after a series of albums in the nineties that explored different territory.

This DVD was filmed in late 2001 and released in 2002 while the band were promoting their The World Needs A Hero album and features the superb and underrated Al Pitrelli on guitar and Jimmy DeGrasso on drums supporting Megadeth stalwarts Dave Ellefson and Dave Mustaine.

The first thing that needs mentioning about the actual DVD is the quality of the camera work, visuals and editing. To this date Rude Awakening is still arguably the finest and most professional video release from Megadeth. Not being filmed outdoors the makers had a great level of precision and control over everything and the stage set up and lighting helped a lot too in making this one of the best looking band DVDs of the era. Almost a decade on and Rude Awakening still looks fantastic.

The track listing is excellent and covers a lot of the fan favourite material from every album the band had released up until that point except Risk. It also contains a healthy amount of material from the then new The World Needs A Hero record which arguably sounds even better live than on record. The band’s 90s era is well served here too, as much as their 80s output and this really is a great all rounder, especially for Megadeth fans who almost like everything the band put out. Tracks like ‘Peace Sells,’ ‘Holy Wars,’ and ‘Mechanix,’ all sit comfortably beside ‘Trust,’ and ‘Reckoning Day,’ in a diverse but very entertaining set.

Some people have problems with the sound, as Dave’s vocals can be too quiet especially when he gets too far from the mic and on the surround sound mix the guitars aren’t apparently handled very well in the first half of the concert. As someone who has listened to the stereo mix for almost a decade I have never had a problem with the sound, in fact I love it. If you yourself play bass or drums you are likely to love the sound mix.

Apart from the mix, the actual recording quality and timbre of the actual individual components are phenomenal, rarely has a drum kit sounded so amazing live. Something well demonstrated during a phenomenal drum solo during She-Wolf.

All of this of course is only the main concert and you still have a brief and entertaining documentary and bonus concert on top of it. Overall; Rude Awakening is definitely something you should check out if you like Megadeth.