Review Summary: "So what" indeed.
Review re-written from my material on www.globaldomination.se/
So Far, So Good… So What! is pretty much the bastard lovechild of 80’s Megadeth; after the underground praise for Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good!, and the surprising mainstream success of Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? (ellipses overload!), So Far was a disappointment, with a shoddy production job resulting from Dave Mustaine using label money that was
supposed to go to the album to feed his drug habit instead. But, I’ll be letting Mustaine off the hook in mouth somewhat here, since I'm not reviewing the crappier-sounding original version of the record, but the remastered and improved one instead (so sue me if I wanna ignore some youthful mistakes). But even on the remaster, the album’s sound is still far from perfect, and the best production in the world won’t fix weak songwriting, but I'll explain all that in a moment.
Opening instrumental “Into The Lungs Of Hell” starts of with really crude-sounding guitar work (like I said, even the sound on the remaster has problems), but the riffing sound soon improves, and leads the track into a three minute show-off fest with ‘deth’s instruments. It’s pretty cool at first, but eventually puts off the real meat of the album for too long; still, decent track. “Set The World Afire” follows that up with some pretty intense riffing, but once Mustaine starts singing, his vocals are surprisingly cracked and strained, not surprising, considering what he was putting into his body back then. Even worse, a problem emerges on “Set” that will be a constant on this album; the songwriting lacks strong direction, and feels like it was written by someone who was being distracted by something else, and didn’t put enough effort into the job at hand (which is pretty much the truth). So, I feel that not only did Dave’s drug habit hurt the production and vocals on So Far, but its basic songwriting as well, perhaps the greatest victim of them all, which is the biggest reason why this album disappointed so many people.
After that is a cover of “Anarchy In The U.K.”, a logical choice (but perhaps too safe a one?) for Megadeth, considering Mustaine’s in-your-face vocal style, and they even have Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones play one of the solos! Still, it doesn't feel quite right to have the cover song this early in the album, plus, it’s a pretty straightforward transplant of the original. Yeah, the two Megadeth albums prior to this had cover songs as well, but at least they both offered something new. Anyway, then comes “Mary Jane”, which gives us the most unfocused songwriting here, and leaves me completely aloof, without any sort of positive impression at all. It just comes and goes and leaves without grabbing me at all, so it’s definitely the weakest track on
502 has some cool audio skits where you can tell Dave had some fun, and it at least has more bite to it than “Mary Jane”, but it’s still a pretty middling thrasher. The bitter “In My Darkest Hour” was written by Mustaine right after he heard about Cliff Burton dying, and while the first half drags a bit, it still at least has some direction to it, and the second half of the song gains more focus, with a nice, speedy tempo going on. For that, “Hour” is one of the better tracks here, though I admit, that really isn’t saying a whole lot.
And as for “Liar”… I don’t like it at all. It has some particularly cracked-sounding vocals, and while the riffs
are decent, its childish lyrics, written to trash former band mate Chris Poland for selling equipment for heroin, really get on my nerves: “Your sister is a junkie, gets it anyway she can/Your brother’s a gay singer in a stud leather band/Your girlfriend’s got herpes to go with the Hep and AIDS/There ain’t one person you know you ain’t ripped off yet”. Is it any surprise writing *** like that, that Mustaine had a hard time keeping his bandmates? Whatever; “Hook In Mouth” is the album closer, and shows Mustaine directing his anger at a much more worthy target, that bane of all things 80’s metal, the PMRC. Accordingly, it has the most relentlessly aggressive songwriting on the album, with a malicious bass line and strong riffing and soloing, easily making it the best song here, and the only one on the album I can truly call “good”.
So, there
are some good riffs and solos to be heard on So Far, and they
almost make me like the record, but the uneven songwriting, along with the intermittently too-rough guitars and the constantly too-ugly vocals from Mustaine, both hurt my enjoyment, making this album a very unsatisfying listen. Check out anything else Megadeth made from ’85 to ’97 before you try out this one, since it’s definitely the worst release from the "Golden Age" of the band.
