Rust in Peace

The name: Megadeth. Iconic pun-oriented satirical album titles like 'Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?', 'So Far, So Good... So What!' or 'Rust in Peace'. A lineup including lead guitar virtuoso Marty Friedman. Technically proficient thrash metal music that prides itself on being true and authentic, not pandering to the mainstream and vociferously against the conforming system. The perfect metal formula, right ?

First and foremost, 'Rust in Peace' is an instrumental-centered piece (although not quite a piece of rust), demonstrating stellar musicianship with its wild 16th note shredded riffs, progressive structured fret work like blues instrumentalists on steroids, dynamic chord changes with occasional detailed open string picking, oddly angled rhythm patterns and unorthodox lead developments exploring various scales, wide theatrical solo sections, amidst the more characteristic jack-knife quick thrashy riff assaults and roaring power chord stomps.

'Holy Wars' or 'Hangar 18' are among the most recognizable old school thrash anthems, with the first's now legendary mid-section of power chords blended with the resonating open string plucks, and the latter showcasing Mustaine's trademark 4-chord chromatic progression in all its glory. The tracks exhibit a wealth of moods and musical colors (at least early on the record) ranging from the more obvious pentatonic blues impishness to rarer ambiances for the style, with a bit of occasional grief, euphoric energy ('Lucretia') and darker tainted moments ('Five Magics').

While the album is certainly impressive from a pure musicianship standpoint and with its rather adventurous undertaking; with certain tracks being instantly recognizable and unique; a hefty chunk of this does end up sounding like straightforward blues metal with Mustaine's plaintive high-pitched whines on top. His spoken voice "performance" on 'Dawn Patrol' and attempt at a pompous English accent doesn't exactly help, his meaner lows on 'Holy Wars' ("No more mistakes !") rather difficult to take seriously, dropping the section's credibility some. Is the "punishment due" having to sit through Mustaine's botched singing for 40min ? I guess so. A trying task, to be sure. An unquestionable prerequisite to enjoy this album is having an unconditional love for the sound of constant blues metal; not even so much thrash as full fledged, outright blues metal; and having an unbending tolerance for wailing hardly-believable vocals that border on full cheesiness quite frankly.

For the outsider who doesn't swear by this band, the album is really interesting only so long as it manages to step outside its strongly blues-tinted thrash comfort zone, which it is able to do on about 3 tracks in parts, give or take. The rest of the way, it's really just Mustaine's angry middle-class lectures about injustices in the world and overly high-strung distortion blues, and Friedman's leads and the overall impressive fret work don't give the album any more depth or meaning ultimately. Great metal means the music has to feel deep on some level, emotionally powerful and climactic. Even Metallica's 'Black Album', blamed for its superficiality, had a track like the immersive 'The Unforgiven'. Except for a few select moments, this album here generally comes across as casual in feel and too often lacks the epic edge of great metal albums, thrash or otherwise.