For his final Megadeth album, Dave Mustaine has gone back to where it started, with a cover of Ride the Lightning, Metallica’s 1984 pocket opus.
Tacked on at the end of the record – which is also called Megadeth – it is listed as a bonus track. Yet its inclusion is surely no afterthought, given that the original Ride the Lightning marked Mustaine’s exit from Metallica and led him to forge ahead under his own steam.
What’s equally telling is that it’s a relatively straightforward take on the 1984 version. Mustaine is not trying to rewrite history or to reclaim the tune; instead he wants to acknowledge it as part of the trajectory of his life as a thrash-metal godfather.
The decision to bring down the shutters on Megadeth with a Metallica classic is also a reminder of the bloody-mindedness that has been a through line of his career. All things must end, but only Mustaine would choose to do so right at the beginning.
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Yet Megadeth is otherwise a lean, no-nonsense addition to the group’s catalogue, largely untroubled by the nostalgia or sentimentality you might expect of a farewell LP.
Mustaine’s refusal to stand on ceremony is on brand for an artist who has long been a byword for doing things his own way – which is part of the reason why Metallica gave him the boot in the first place (along with his alcoholism).
“It’s not what people say about me, it’s what God knows about me, brother,” he told me once. “I don’t care what they say. Megadeth is a living, breathing organism. As much as I founded it and it’s my baby, it’s more than just me. The feeling our fans get when they hear a Megadeth song – it’s unique.”
Unique but also familiar, a comfort blanket of shredding guitars and take-no-prisoners lyrics. On Megadeth he begins with a classic zigging riff, to which he adds harsh truths for his detractors. “Today I may bleed but tonight you will die / Snatched in your sleep, in the blackest night,” he growls on Tipping Point, its opening track. You can almost see the voodoo pin twinkling in his hand as he savours the moment of revenge.
Mustaine (who also features in the new “listening party” film Megadeth: Behind the Mask) doesn’t lighten up. “I don’t care if you don’t like what I say,” he snarls on I Don’t Care. He’s even angry at God, whom he accuses of abandoning him (a surprise considering his status as a born-again Christian). “Sometimes I feel so insecure as I walk these streets alone.”
There is no great drama behind the end of Megadeth. Mustaine, who is now 64, has arthritis, and he fears the day when he can no longer play guitar with the old virtuosity. He also wants to quit while he’s still at his peak – though not quite yet, and will be dragging out this long goodbye, Elton John-style, with an ongoing world tour.
The closest he comes to catharsis is on final track, The Last Note (followed, of course, by the “bonus” Metallica cover). “Each mile the road has worn me thin,” he rasps, sounding like a Spinal Tap Iggy Pop. “The final curtain falls, a quiet end to it all.”
It’s a flash of melancholia and reflectiveness on a record that largely hides its feelings beneath onslaughts of guitars, and would have benefited from something that Mustaine has never had much time for. And that, of course, is vulnerability.
