Megadeth – Greatest Hits, Back To the Start
Album Information
This is Megadeth’s second compilation album with songs which is selected by megadeth fans.
The album contains some of their most famous and well-known songs like In My Darkest Hour, Holy Wars, A Tout Le Monde and Hangar 18. There are some remastered and remixed tracks and some of them are Peace Sells, Sweating Bullets and more. The songs are collected from their first album till their album ¨The World Needs A Hero¨, a great mix of songs but there are a few songs here which gets boring with the time.
Megadeth is known for their technologycal and experimental thrash metal which they have played and plays even today. In the beginning Megadeth played intensive yet ¨smart¨ thrash metal, albums that shows typical changes in thier music are Peace Sells, Rust In Peace and Risk for example. PSBWB is like the rawest and had some of Megadeth most brutal lyrics in few of the songs. Rust is Megadeth's biggest and greatest album to many and I understand that, the songs is presice, very technical but yet melodic and the solos from former member Marty are som of the best and Dave does also some great guitar solos. Songs that contains these fragments can be Holy Wars and Tornado Of Souls. Most thrash metal bands has intensive drumming but not Megadeth, I would describe Megadeth's music as fast, melodic and listener-friendly thrash metal. There is not one album that sounds like another album, all albums has a different sound of its own and thats why Megadeth is so unique.
Megadeth was formed by Dave Mustaine after his departure from Metallica. He was kicked becuase of his alcoholic problems which was affecting Metallica. Through the years Megadeth had many talented musicians in their line ups, poeple like bassist David Ellefson, guitarrists as Marty Friedman and Chris Poland and so on. Dave said once during a live performence that it had been 10 years of bulls*^* between Megadeth and Metallica which is now over, Dave created this band as an revenge because he was kicked. He wanted to be greater than Metallica but he didn't succeed. Thier albums is all different than the other, from thrash metal to more mainstream. But MEgadeth is one of the most well-known bands in metal history, Megadeth was also a member of the Big Four which included Anthrax, Metallica and Slayer during the 80's.
The most classic Megadeth songs on this album is Peace Sells, In My Darkest Hour, A Tout Le Monde, Holy Wars and Hangar 18. Peace Sells is known of its clear message ¨Peace Sells But Who's Buying¨. Holy Wars is an example of the bands great musical skills, Hangar 18 is known from the music video when they play in this hangar which is full of aliens. A Tout Le Monde is a good example of Dave's talent of writing lyrics and I.M.D.H is known because of its lyrics.
The songs are not new recorded; it’s old songs which had their current line-up at the time. I first thought that it was old songs that were played by megadeth’s line-up that it is today with James and the Drover brothers, but it isn’t. One little disappointment though but the remastered tracks sure saves this album.
The remastered tracks are Nr: 1- 4, 6, 7, 9, 11 – 13 & 15 - 17. I’m not 100% sure but they don’t sound like on the original albums. The most notable songs are In My Darkest Hour, A Tout Le Monde and Prince Of Darkness. The songs I think is a bit boring might be Trust, Kill The King and Dread And The Fugitive Mind, but that’s just my opinion.
Pros
- Good mix of tracks
- Great remastered tracks
- There are many tracks
- Cool album cover
Cons
- Songs like Trust does not fit in a compilation album
- The tracks are not performed by the line-up as it is today
I think that this is a album that every Megadeth fan should have, it is not a perfect album but it has songs that everyone likes, more or less. The remastered tracks makes the album even better with their other sound that some people never heard yet. Final rating: 4.5/5
