When I reviewed Exodus’s
\nBonded By Blood<\/i> a short time ago, I mentioned that the three
\nbig names in California heavy metal – Metallica, Megadeth and
\nExodus – all came out with rough-sounding but powerful debut
\nalbums. Today, we look at the second of those efforts, Megadeth’s
\n1985 release
\nKilling Is My Business… And Business Is Good!<\/i><\/p>\n
Any half-hearted student of metal knows that Dave Mustaine was
\none of the original members of Metallica, and his departure\/firing
\nfrom the band eventually led to the formation of Megadeth. With
\nguitarist Chris Poland, bassist Dave Ellefson and drummer Gar
\nSamuelson in tow, Mustaine set out to release an album that would
\ncrush his former bandmates.<\/p>\n
Did he succeed? Well, not really… but
\nKilling Is My Business…<\/i> is nothing to sneeze at, either.
\nSound-wise, it’s very rough (rumors I’ve read say it’s because half
\nthe album’s budget was blown on, aah, “recreational activities”),
\nbut a lot of the debut efforts I’ve heard from this time period
\nsounded rough, so let’s not jump to too many conclusions.<\/p>\n
Three of the eight songs on this album jump up and grab your
\nattention almost immediately. The first is “Mechanix,” a song that
\nsome people might scratch their heads on and say, “Hmm.. I’ve heard
\nthis before.” Four words: Metallica’s “The Four Horsemen”. Seeing
\nthat Mustaine co-wrote that song when he was in Metallica, he has
\nevery right to release his own version (with different lyrics), and
\nthe end result isn’t bad at all. The second is the title track, the
\nsong that probably caught most fans’ attention back in the
\nmid-’80s. The mixture of a slower (albeit heavy) lyric portion with
\nthe adrenalin-pumping bridge and chorus is enough to get anyone’s
\nhead slamming into the drywall.<\/p>\n
And then, there’s the cover of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots”…
\na cover I happen to like. It’s done slightly tongue-in-cheek, but
\nwith all the devil-may-care energy that propels many of the songs
\non
\nKilling Is My Business…<\/i>. Why the band chose to cover it, I
\ndon’t know, but it’s probably the only version of this song that I
\ncan stomach without living on Maalox for a week afterwards.<\/p>\n
The remainder of
\nKilling Is My Business…<\/i> is equally strong, although the
\nrougher production sound does distract at times. What could have
\nbeen a pristine-sounding album with guitar solos that jumped out
\nand grabbed you by the collar have been reduced to solos that sound
\na bit too muddy. (On the lighter side, there’s not a terrible
\namount of echo used on Mustaine’s vocals – and he does sing the
\nparts quite often.) Tracks like “Rattlehead,” Last Rites\/Loved To
\nDeath” and “Skull Beneath The Skin” all do have their moments.<\/p>\n
Mustaine and crew have easily topped this album in their career
\n(though this particular lineup would only be together for one more
\nalbum), but there is still enough on
\nKilling Is My Business… And Business Is Good!<\/i> to interest
\nmetalheads today – even if it’s only to see how Megadeth got its
\nstart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5796],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-38900","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-megadeth","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38900"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38900"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}