The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead!

If you had an AI listen to Megadeth’s entire discography on repeat 1,000 times and then write an album, this would be the album. It is a patchwork of every release to this point, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing!

People like to talk about Dave’s age impacting his vocal performance, but I’m just not hearing it here. He has never been the most technically talented vocalist, but his vocals are iconic. And from the rapid fire sections to the sustained fry scream in Life in Hell, one simply cannot claim he doesn’t have chops.

Where Dave’s age really shows is in his songwriting. His lyrics are notably bad here, but they’re not a major problem besides on a couple songs like Mission to Mars and Cèlebutante, the latter of which was likely doomed from the subject matter anyways. The main problem is the overuse of spoken word sections. This should not be conflated with a bad vocal performance, because it is a creative decision to have any vocals there at all (spoken or otherwise,) and there are many interesting riffs which could have been highlighted if not for the spoken word sections distracting from them. Mission to Mars is ironically the exception to this, because the spoken word section at the end is the highlight of the song and serves as a wonderfully clever homage to Megadeth’s career.

The riffs feel generally uninspired outside of a few exceptions—notably the title track, Night Stalkers, and We’ll Be Back. Besides those songs, there are no major standout riffs that I take with me after listening to the album. Everything else simply “fits.”

The rest of the band really steals the show here. Dirk is arguably the best drummer Dave has ever worked with, Kiko is certainly no slouch and his creativity and energy are audible on every track, and Steve DiGiorgio is… Steve DiGiorgio. Probably the GOAT when it comes to metal bass. The renewed energy from this lineup has the same effect that elevated Ozzy’s “Ordinary Man” album. You can tell that everyone had a blast making this album, and that energy carries the whole album.

But high energy can only go so far for any album. Cohesiveness is important too, and this album doesn’t really have it to the same degree that some of its predecessors do. The production is oddly varied, and at times it almost feels like it wasn’t all mastered together. For instance, Killing Time feels quite thick and punchy, so when it leads into Soldier On! which is much thinner, the opening riff just loses all of its bite.

As far as cohesiveness between the songs? It’s about the same. While Night Stalkers and We’ll Be Back would both feel at home alongside any of Megadeth’s thrash classics, tracks like Soldier On and Sacrifice feel more in line with an album like Super Collider or Th1rt3en. Thrash-inspired, but rather tame. Junkie and Killing Time both feel like they were unreleased B-sides from Cryptic Writings, and Killing Time is certainly not a big enough stand-alone track to warrant a full lead-in song making Psychopathy feel a bit out of place. I believe the plan was to have Killing Time be a single, and it was only through a snafu with Apple that caused Soldier On! to become the third single instead, but ultimately I believe this was the wise choice. It works much better as a single than it does in its album placement.

But despite all of that, at track #4 we have the single greatest song Megadeth has ever released: Dogs of Chernobyl. And I don’t take that accolade lightly. This is the pinnacle of Megadeth’s modern songwriting, and for standalone tracks I truly would put it right up there with Holy Wars, Tornado of Souls, Wake Up Dead, In My Darkest Hour, etc. for their best ever.

I should also briefly mention the covers. Police Truck is actually one of the highlights of this album. Such a fun track, and you can really hear Dave having fun with it which makes it that much better. With Cold Sweat being arguably the best track on Super Collider, and the quality of both covers on this album, I kind of want to hear Dave do a full cover album a la Overkill. Probably won’t happen but it would be fun to hear!

So is this a good Megadeth album? Yes! Especially when you judge it subjectively against its more recent predecessors. It is probably even better than Endgame, and arguably their best since Countdown or Youthanasia (although I personally prefer United Abominations to anything they’ve put out in the past 30 years.)

Is it a good album objectively? Still yes, but I wouldn’t call it amazing. It has its flaws—which I’ve described—but it also has some truly incredible songs. And with a name like Megadeth on the album cover, and considering the circumstances with Dave’s health, I struggle immensely to grade this album objectively. So while this album is likely to be ranked low initially, you can almost rest assured that it will be revisited and appreciated for a long time.

Highlights:
- The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead!
- Life in Hell
- Night Stalkers
- Dogs of Chernobyl
- We’ll Be Back
- Police Truck (Bonus Track)

Avoid Like… The Plague?:
- Cèlebutante
- Junkie

Total Score: 75/100