{"id":41730,"date":"2009-10-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/endgame-2\/"},"modified":"2009-10-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-17T00:00:00","slug":"endgame-2","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/endgame-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Endgame"},"content":{"rendered":"

At this point, it seems safe to say that the Gods Of Metal that ruled the 1980\u2019s have completed a successful reclamation project with regards to their legacies. The mid-to-late \u201890s and early into the \u2018Naughts saw the reputations of groups like Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, and Judas Priest take nosedives as metal\u2019s status in the industry dropped.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

To be fair, most of the damage was self-inflicted. No one who listens to records like St. Anger<\/i> or Risk<\/i> would argue the point. Metal had grown stagnant; it took another decade before it was cool to be retro\/backwards looking. Metallica fought back with last year\u2019s Death Magnetic<\/i>, and Megadeth has been on the comeback trail for about four to five years. The strengths of those respective records were the focus on what had propelled those groups to stardom; the songs were fast, angry, and oh so very heavy.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Dave Mustaine is a talented man; there is no debating that concept. The fact that his group was born out of a singular desire to play faster and heavier than the group that fired him (Metallica) just defines heavy metal in so many ways. There were the early highs of the \u201880s for Megadeth, culminating in their best work of Rust In Peace<\/i>. The commercial success of Countdown To Extinction <\/i>followed, essentially Megadeth\u2019s version of the The Black Album<\/i>. But much like their counterparts Metallica, Megadeth started to dial back on the speed and replaced it with genuine hooks and more conventional songwriting methods.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Endgame<\/i> continues Mustaine\u2019s efforts to bring his band back to what they do best, regardless of the lineup at the time. 2007\u2019s United Abominations<\/i> saw a purposeful focus on attempting to recreate the feel of \u201880s Megadeth: blistering fast solos, purposeful chugging riffs, and a dash of political analysis thrown in for good measure. The result was a decent album with some outstanding moments, but on the whole, it was underwhelming.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Endgame<\/i> unfortunately offers much of the same as its predecessor. All the elements are present for a classic return-to-form record, but the main problem is that the material itself isn\u2019t terribly compelling. The second half of the album suffers terribly from a rote paint-by-numbers approach to what Megadeth is supposed to sound like. Truth be told, that was always Mustaine And Co.\u2019s weakness; this reviewer would argue they only crafted two albums that were strong from top to bottom.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

With that said, there are stretches of vintage Megadeth where Mustaine\u2019s prerelease hype almost seems spot on. The opening one-two punch of \u201cDialectic Chaos\u201d and \u201cThis Day We Fight\u201d functions as a slap in the face; the rage and tenacity with which Megadeth play is refreshing compared to the brand of metal popularized by groups like Disturbed or Avenged Sevenfold. By the same token, the brilliant \u201cHeadcrusher\u201d revitalizes the proceedings on the back half of the record, exploding out of the gate with a ferocious performance from Shawn Drover on drums that legitimately reminds me classic metal tracks such as \u201cPainkiller\u201d from Judas Priest.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The problem with latter day Megadeth is a sense of sameness. Were one to remove the best tracks from the albums since 2004\u2019s The System Has Failed<\/i>, I would be hard-pressed to identify which album most of the songs were from. They tend to blend together with a unifying degree of blandness; you could switch up the track order amongst all the albums and you wouldn\u2019t miss a beat. Say what you will, but Rust In Peace<\/i> has a completely different feel than Peace Sells\u2026<\/i>, which doesn\u2019t sound anything like Killing Is My Business<\/i>. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

The Megadeth that exists today doesn\u2019t seem capable or willing to attempt to vary it up. While listening to Endgame<\/i> and hearing the song \u201cHow The Story Ends,\u201d my mind started to ask the question, \u201cwhere have I heard this song before?\u201d I raced through the discography, trying to place just which track I was thinking of. Turns out, it was \u201cBodies,\u201d four songs prior to \u201cHow The Story Ends.\u201d When that feeling arises while listening to an album, it becomes apparent that there wasn\u2019t exactly a plethora of ideas available to the artist.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

From a technical standpoint, Megadeth is a supremely talented group that could outplay most of the metal bands out there. Mustaine is a master, and remains fully capable of writing outstanding material. Endgame<\/i> shows off that side of his talent while also demonstrating his limits. Megadeth is definitely back, but right now, they are lagging behind their brethren.<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":30078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5796],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-41730","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-megadeth","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41730","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41730"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41730"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}