HISTORY
The thrash-metal movement was on a rampage in America during the 80’s, bands all over the country was starting grow, some bands became more popular than others but there was a quartet that would pave the way for many metal genres to come. This quartet was containing four influential bands, you had
Slayer who played music in Satan’s front yard, you had
Anthrax who would grasp people with their vocally talented
Joey Belladonna, you also had
Metallica who was beating the living s*** out of people with their heavy riffing and golden solos but you had one last band. This band is called
Megadeth, and technical and fast thrash-metal band that proved to have better musical abilities than the rest of the other bands, though the vocals from
Dave Mustaine has never been the bands strongest point, but you either love them or hate them.
Megadeth was created by
Dave Mustaine after being kicked out of
Metallica,
Dave wanted to be better and greater than his former friends but he only got at second place.
Megadeth has been changing crew members from album to album but the band finally got a line-up that really lifted them to a new level of music, the new comers
Marty Friedman and
Nick Menza proved to be very good replacements. The band had already released the smashing album
Peace Sells But Who’s Buying but with this line up they released
Rust In Peace, but when time went on the band started to be affected by the mainstream and their albums started to loose their edge and fire.
ALBUM INFORMATION / LYRIC MESSAGES
This album is called
Cryptic Writings an this was released in 2004 (the reissue, no the original), an album that really shows that the band is watered down with mainstream elements, effects whatever but the band still shows that they can master their music abilities. The album has a very good variety in the song material, there may be not many highlights here but you got slow songs, fast songs, heavy songs and catchy songs. But this album is not the original album that I’m going to review; this is the reissued version which includes some bonus tracks! We will come back to them later though, let’s move on in this review and find out what this is all about.
BAND MEMBERS
Dave Mustaine – Vocalist and all round guitarist in this band, many people says that he sucks as a vocalist but I disagree. I think that he is a good vocalist, he may sound odd but you can hear that he is though a bit skilled when it comes to singing. His vocals would be best described as quite neutral and whiney but still a bit strong, but this is my own opinion. He is though a great guitarist, he plays acoustics, rhythms and leads. His guitar work is flawless and catchy in this album, it is though not as complex or advanced as in previous albums but this works fine.
Marty Freidman – Second guitarist in this band and he is also a very good guitarist, probably one of the best guitarist
Megadeth has ever had. Very good lead guitarist who can deliver high-class solos, unfortunately there is not highly advanced guitar playing from
Marty either. But the riffing has a good variety, there are some thrash riffs hear and there, the solos are though pretty skilled, melodic and catchy.
David Ellefsson – Long time companion alongside
Dave Mustaine and bassist of this fine band. This is one of the better bassist around, you can’t though hear his bass lines as much as liked but he really provides a good sound to make the rhythm sections feel steady and heavy. There are no standout performances form the bass but you can hear it here and there throughout the songs.
Nick Menza – Drummer, also a good musician, this was the last album that
Nick was helping to create. These drum patterns are nothing highly advanced either, there are most times pretty calm and catchy drum patterns but there are though some faster thrash drumming in a few songs. A good performance but I really miss the bands glorious days as a technical high-tech band.
THE SONGS
These songs may not be their best achievement but there are though some songs which is really good. I thought I would start with the songs I think are great so we start with my first favourite track
Vortex, this song just got to be one of the more technical songs on this album. The riff is pretty technical and very catchy, the song pattern is fast and heavy and of course catchy. The lyrics are the weakest point of this song though, definitely one of the better songs in my opinion.
She-Wolf is probably one of the best tracks, this song has a simple but yet effective thrash riff, the song is fast and very catchy, the solo is one of the best songs on this album too. The song pattern might seem a little flat but it is though catchy, a very good song.
Have Cool, Will Travel, a horrible song to most people but I think its cool, it has a half-groovy sound in the beginning with a slightly catchy riff. The song pattern are though quite interesting, the song starts with this weird intro section and then it later changes to a half-grinding heavy hitter pattern and finally a calm and melodic section.
The Disintegrators is definitely the fastest song here, this might also be the song with most thrash elements in it. The song is very intensive, the drums are pretty fast and the overall sound feels a bit chaotic. The song is catchy and the lyrics are better in this one.
Mastermind is perhaps the funkiest or grooviest song on this album if you ask me, the song starts with an awesome bass intro which is later followed by a heavy and semi-tech song pattern. The song is heavy, very heavy and has a good solo, an interesting song which is also catchy.
That were some songs that I like more than the rest, the rest of the songs are basically less interesting, they are still good but they don’t grasp my attention as good as the others. There are though a few song that I find bad in this album, one song is
Trust. I can’t see why everyone praises this song; this song is so boring to my ears. The song starts with this long and boring drum intro, an uninteresting bass line is followed and then the song gets to business. I can’t find this song catchy, the riffs are boring, the drums seem so regular and the overall song pattern is just, boring.
FFF, my second nightmare of this album, the song feels though very thrashy but the riff feels so strange and un-catchy, the stupid noises in the chorus just makes this song worse.
I’ll Get Even is a song with more bass than the rest, but these bass lines are so boring. The song pattern feels quite okay but the instruments does not deliver any bigger excellence, no, this song is not near a highlight.
THE BONUS TRACKS
This album was remastered so there were four other songs that were included; these songs are though nothing special. It was a bit of a disappointment when I noticed that these were exactly the same songs but in different formats if I say so.
Trust is here a Spanish version of the original
Trust, this song was even worse. I thought that
Dave was singing entirely in Spanish but he only sings in Spanish during the chorus, and he can’t speak good Spanish, you can’t almost not hear what he is singing.
Evil That’s Within its another version of
Sin, the only major differences is that the song has a less ‘’complicated’’ structure and some other lyrics, basically the same song but I liked this version better than the original.
Vortex is an alternate version, also basically the same song but this one seemed to be a bit slower, somewhat heavier and a bit darker. It is also some moderations in the lyrics here as well but they are not any better than the original lyrics.
Bullprick is a version of
FFF, except that this one was surprisingly better! This song felt more like metal, the song structure is the same, the lyrics are more focused on violent stuff rather than peace, and there are no stupid sound effects.
MY CONCLUSION
I guess that would be enough, you may notice that I didn’t mentioned the four ‘’unmentioned’’ songs, I thought I would just focus on my favourite songs and my most hated songs. I love
Megadeth, I would say that I have some love for every single
Megadeth song and album but this album is not one of my favourites. It was my favourite album a few years back but I prefer their old sound rather than their newer sound. I bought this album just because I collect on
Megadeth thingies, but I think this is not an excellent album, not a great album, but I think this is a really good album. I enjoy the material and I think that this is a very listener friendly album, a good rock/metal album, but I think that this album would suit the fans better than other people. I hope that this was an interesting review and I hope this was to any guidance, if you got critics or stuff like that just give them to me.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Vortex
-- She-Wolf
-- Mastermind
This album will be given a 3/5
