We should be celebrating that The System Has Failed<\/i>\u2014and, for that matter, any album from Dave Mustaine and Megadeth post-2002\u2014even exists. Having been diagnosed with an arm injury in 2002 that prevented him from playing guitar, Mustaine broke up the band he had fronted since the mid-\u201980s and focused on his recovery\u2014which took considerably less time than doctors had predicted.<\/p>\n
Originally planned to be a solo album (but changed to a Megadeth title due to contractual obligations), The System Has Failed<\/i> proves one thing: Mustaine is<\/i><\/b> Megadeth, and the other musicians who support him merely add to the flavor. But while this album contains a lot to celebrate, it does pale in comparison with some of the classics in Megadeth\u2019s discography.<\/p>\n
After 20 years of slugging it out, Mustaine seems like, in terms of his music, he\u2019s reached a happy medium between the all-out thrash side and a commercial bent to the songs. It\u2019s not that you\u2019re going to hear songs like \u201cDie Dead Enough,\u201d \u201cOf Mice And Men\u201d or \u201cTears In A Vial\u201d any time soon on commercial radio, but there\u2019s enough of a groove to them to suggest that they could have fit into the right format.<\/p>\n
And the fact that Mustaine and, for this outing, his hired hands\u2014guitarist Chris Poland, bassist Jimmie Lee Sloas and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta\u2014are able to walk the two distinct styles of metal without losing any power is admirable. The simple fact is, this sound works for Megadeth, and works well\u2014even though this could be seen as their angriest album since Rust In Peace<\/i>.<\/p>\n
There is plenty to enjoy on The System Has Failed<\/i>\u2014from the political anger in \u201cBlackmail The Universe\u201d to the catchy groove of \u201cThe Scorpion,\u201d Mustaine and crew show they still know how to capture the listener\u2019s attention. The problem, though, is maintaining that level of interest\u2014and this is where the disc falls short.<\/p>\n
Where earlier discs had songs that immediately jumped out at the listener and grabbed them by the throat, there is precious little on The System Has Failed<\/i> that does this\u2014a shame, since that is really where Mustaine\u2019s true power lies. There aren\u2019t nearly enough memorable songs to make this disc stand out\u2014so while it\u2019s extremely listenable, and Mustaine proves to be in quite possibly the finest voice he\u2019s been in his career, the songs all tend to blend a bit into one another.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake, The System Has Failed<\/i> is not a terrible disc, and is one I\u2019d definitely pop into a regular rotation in my stereo system. But it has all the markings of a \u201cwhat might have been\u201d disc, not one that should have been a celebration of Mustaine\u2019s return to health and to the metal community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5796],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-46468","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\/46468","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=46468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46468"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46468"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}