Megadeth – Youthanasia (reissue)
Album Information
This album is a follow-up to one of their greatest albums ¨Countdown To Extinction¨, this album is more heavier than the other albums from Megadeth. Ellefsons bass is down-tuned which makes a heavier sound to the songs. This album does not contain much of the bandmembers best music-skills which is clearly heard on ¨Rust In Peace¨. There are some good moments on this album but as you can hear there is not much energy and progression in the songs and I think I know why. Correct me if I am wrong but according to the facts I have read about this album says that Dave Mustaine was very deep into heroin-addictions while they were working on this album.
Track Information
Reckoning Day
The song is based around fast, chunky and heavy riffing and makes a good opener to the album. Not a great song because of the song-structure, which is quite flat and unchanging throughout the song. 3.5/5
Train Of Consequences
One of Megadeth's well-known songs, starts of with muted riffs which sounds like a train. The song is in medium pase and has lot of good riffs and solos. The vocals of Dave Mustaine may be a bit hard to listen to if you're not used to it, anyway this is a great song in general. 4.5/5
Addicted To Chaos
Starts with great drumming from Menza and the band kicks in short after with some catchy riffing. Vocals and lyrics sounds good and the soloing is perfect. This song is calm it its pase but not a highlight of the album. 4/5
A Tout Le Monde
Incredible ballad from an incredible band, this song starts with calm acoustics and later transforms into a moderated-pased ballad. The lyrics makes a great description about death and Dave's vocals is great. Great solos and lyrics and the best song of the album. 5/5
Elysian Fields
Another medium-pased song, the riffs are not to catchy and the song in general is not a great one but still it isen't a bad one. 3.5/5
The Killing Road
This song is a bit faster than the other songs, the riffing is tight and catchy and the lyrics is quite awesome. Great solo and good vocals. 4/5
Blood Of Heros
Contains some chunky and heavy riffing which is somewhat catchy. The song is once again a medium-pased song and the riffs and solos are quite much the same as the previous songs. 3.5/5
Family Tree
Starts of with some semi-solos and after that Ellefson plays a down-tuned bass-line which is almost unhearable. The song has a ¨dark¨ theme to its sound and has a good melodic structure. 4/5
Youthanasia
I think that this is the only song of the album which is bad. I have listen to it a few times and I found it uninteresting everytime. Wierd riffs but some good solos here but not a highlight though. 2.5/5
I thought I Knew It All
I think that this is the second best song after A Tout Le Monde, the song is quite heavy in its sound and the riffs are very catchy. Great vocals but the lyrics are kind of strange. 5/5
Black Curtains
A slow song with lots of wierd riffs at the start, the lyrics are wierd but the song really gets great when the bridge (or something) kicks in. The song gets more rhythmics and the solo sounds really good. 4/5
Victory
This is a perfect song where Dave have made a song based on the headlines from previous songs and albums. Though the lyrics sonds odd but the song is energic and fast and has lot of great riffing. 5/5
The Bonus Tracks
I came across the reissued CD and it contains four more songs and they are:
-Millenium Of The Blind
-New World Order (demo)
-A Tout Le Monde (demo)
-Absolution (instrumental)
Millenium Of The Blind starts with a heavy intro which sounds pretty much like some riffs in the songs ¨1000 Times Goodbye¨. The lyrics is about the world and the children which is born faceless, without eyes and they can’t see etc. The song is short and does not contain any great riffs or speed, the structure is the same throughtout the song and it ends with a few solo riffs. 3/5
New World Order sounds very good because of its tempo and sound, it sounds a bit punkish and there is some classic Megadeth-riffing and soloing. The verse is boring because it is slow and the intruments is sounding eastern and some what spooky, the verse is great where you can hear the other members sings along with Dave. The song gets more thrashier at the end and the song in general sound great. 4/5
A Tout Le Monde, I really love this song no matter how it is played. This demo is quite different from the original song. This demo is more based around the famous acoustics and the solos which I will write more about. Dave’s vocals is kind of hard to hear at in this song because it sounds like he is going to die in agony at some moments but they are ok, the lyrics is the same as the original. The solo really is something in this song, it is more harmonic and melodic and the guitar is not so distorted. The solo is wonderful and I really was dissapointed that this solo was not included in the other version. 5/5
Absolution is an instrumental song which is based around acousitics at the beginning. Later the solos comes and they sound familiar to the solos in ¨Rust In Peace¨. The song sounds kind of tradgic and sad or depressive, people that have all the CD’s from Megadeth would surely recognize that there are fragments from this song that sounds familiar to other songs which is written by Megadeth. Not a great song, more like a boring song. 2/5
PROS
-A Tout Le Monde and the demo-version
-The lyrics makes sense
-Good production
-Great variation of the songs
-Great bass
CONS
-The lack of the incredible skills this band can master
-The bonus songs could been better except ¨A Tout Le Monde¨
Done, hope you like this one better than the previous version. This album is a bit different from their other albums because of its heaviness and slow pased songs. This album is very ¨friendly¨ to the listeners and I would recommend this album to any metal-head or what so ever. I think that this is one of Megadeth best albums after ¨Rust In Peace¨. I will change the overall album rating so the final rating will be: 4.5/5
