Megadeth - Dystopia (2016)

So far I've bought a whopping two CD's to start the year. One of them being Abbath's killer self-titled release and the other being Megadeth's newest digital slab of goodness. Megadeth's recent releases have been a bit subpar and their previous Super Collider effort brought forth some of the harshest criticism I've heard against any release in quite some time. 

So did Megadeth "redeem" themselves with Dystopia? 

Hell yes. Granted they still managed to throw in an ill-advised cover song in there somehow (just like they did on their first three releases), but other than that I really can't find too much fault with this album. 

Of course, I should say that thrash isn't really my favorite style of music. I love it, but I don't think it should be the be all, end all of music. I haven't heard a lot of songs off of Super Collider, but I enjoyed the ones I heard, more or less. So perhaps I'm just easy to please. Maybe Dystopia isn't a great metal masterpiece I want to say it is. You certainly may disagree and perhaps even vehemently so. In which case I highly recommend you fill out this Butthurt Form. I'll get back to you, I swear. 

I do agree that Megadeth is at their best when they are fast and furious and there is plenty of that on Dystopia. The album does slow down a bit toward the end, perhaps in a purposeful effort to not lose fans of the "slower" period, but pretty much all of the songs seem built on a solid foundation. Although at times there's a bit too much of a "hey, this reminds me of another Megadeth song" going on with both the fast and slower stuff.

Then again Slayer (whom I love) have made a career out of rewriting the same songs so I can't fault Megadeth too much for recalling some of their classics.

Chris Adler and Kiro Loureio really bring some balls to this album. Perhaps that could even explain just why this album is as heavy as it is. There hasn't been a real sense of "shreddiness" since the Endgame album, but that's definitely back. While not quite up there with Rust in Peace, this could very well end up being remembered as one of their better "guitar hero" type of albums. While I'm not a shredder (despite owning a few Jacksons) even I feel like picking up a guitar and playing fast after hearing this. 

I do hope this lineup of Megadeth can hang around. Although with Chris Adler's Lamb of God commitments who really knows. And Megadeth guitarists rarely seem to survive too many albums. We'll see. 

But if this is all we get from this lineup then I think we hit some serious paydirt.

I've listened to this album multiple times on some long drives since it arrived at my door after it was released. It gets better each time.