Megadeth

Countdown To Extinction

4.5 stars

Review Score:

(8/10)
This is a very good straight metal album, but is nothing more than that. However, Metallica Jr., err, Megadeth, has never been, and will never be in even the same ballpark as Metallica, much less superior too them, and you should all realize that anyone who says otherwise is in the extreme minority... Still, that aside, this album is certainly an enjoyable listen, even if it is no where near as good as The Black Album(which it is a stunning rip-off of, by the way), and is certainly nowhere near as good as the Mid to Late-80's stuff by Metallica. It also isn't as good as their previous album, Rust In Peace.

This isn't really a thrash-metal album anymore, just a straight metal album, which IS NOT a sell-out, by the way. They do kick it up to a decent speed on a couple of the songs, but most of the time it is fairly mid-paced. The loss of speed aside, this is a album is quite different from Rust In Peace in a number of other ways. Rust In Peace was overrun with dozens of solos, and unconventional song structures throughout. Most of the songs on Extinction are of the basic rock song formula, and though it still has quite a few solos, it has nowhere near as many as Rust In Peace. This isn't entirely a bad thing, as I think Rust In Peace occasionally over did it with the soloing. The guitars are also a bit bassier and more ominous than they were before, though they still are a bit light on some of the songs, especially since Megadeth has always relied less on straight power-chord riffing than the other thrash bands. Mustaine's vocal style remains essentially the same as before, which is too bad as he really isn't much of a vocalist, but the intruments are good enough that this really isn't too much of a problem. Lyrically, this is the best Megadeth album I've heard. It is generally maturely and fairly intelligently written, with the exception of Psychotron, which is stunningly dumb, and High-Speed Dirt, which is fairly dumb.

Song-wise, this album is fairly consistent until the last quater or so, at which point it loses much of it's momentum. They are all at least decent songs, but the end is definitely weaker than the rest. Skin 'O My Teeth, the opener, is arguably the strongest song on the album, and is one of the faster, thrashier songs, with a good chorus. Symphony of Destruction and This Was My Life are two of the other major stand-outs from the album, though the first 7 songs are all strong.(With the exception of the verses of Sweating Bullets, which are quite annoying, but the chorus is good enough to redeem it) Captive Honour is probably the best track of the relatively weak final couple of tracks, despite having a screwed up, half spoken part towards the beginning of it. Psychotron is the only really weak song, and it isn't too bad.

So, all in all, this is good, straight-forward, and highly conventional heavy metal. Thus, it isn't really brilliant, and it sure as hell isn't Metallica, but it is still worth the money of any Metal fan, presuming he isn't an underground psycho who thinks that anything that isn't self-conciously anti-commercial is a sell-out.

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