Year Of Metal #060: Megadeth – Rust In Peace
The fates (i.e. the randomiser) have thrown another thrash metal album my way, and with my near-unanimous lukewarm responses to the subgenre, you’d think it’d be cause for an eye roll, even dread. This is Megadeth we’re talking about, though, the second of the Big Four I’ve tackled, here at the very peak of their powers. So while I was a touch trepidatious, I wasn’t too surprised to discover that 1990’s Rust In Peace absolutely rips.
There’s really no trick to it - Dave Mustaine’s outfit are doing much the same stuff as all the thrash acts that followed in their wake, and they’re not fulfilling the genre formalities - the pummelling drums, the airtight rhythm work, the solos - any different or any better. They’ve simply a) written far better songs and b) thought a lot harder about how to go about structuring an LP.
You know you’re in safe hands from the opening five seconds of “Holy Wars…The Punishment Due”. Before the CD’s so much as reached top speed in the player, grumpy Dave is hitting you with a riff that makes you want to pause the music, grab your own guitar, and learn to play it. It’s technical but played with a cocky, dashed-offness reflected by the fact the band immediately chuck it aside for something else. For album introductions, it doesn’t get much better than this, a six minute suite in which the tempo rises and falls but the energy never dips for a second.
Across the album Megadeth tackle (or try to tackle) heavy subjects like war and religious extremism, and strike an incredibly impressive balance between fun and heft. It’s never quite po-faced or self important, but neither is it silly or goofy. “Take No Prisoners” is a highlight on that front. It’s a near to the knuckle track about the horrors of combat and could cross the line into edgelord tastelessness, but it stays on the right side. It also pops with well considered details - the chanting call and response of the verse vocals, the occasional bass flourish.
A word on Dave Mustaine - it doesn’t take a lot of reading to come to the conclusion that he’s quite the shithead, but I can’t help being amused by his bitterness about being booted from Metallica, which he clings onto to this day. His scene in Some Kind Of Monster, where he grouses about the whole thing decades after the fact, as though he hadn’t spent his life in a very successful (even if not Metallica successful) metal band, is so funny. He’s obviously a man of exacting standards, and the result is a super tight, 40 minutes and change thrash record that has been considered down to every last detail.
Structure isn’t something that I’ve remarked on a lot on these thrash releases (because to my ear it’s pretty repetitive stuff), but Rust In Peace gets it right. They know when to slow things down - with the sprawling “Five Magics”, placed at just the right point - and when to give it some welly for a final push. “Tornado Of Souls”, one of Megadeth’s most popular tracks, is kept in the chamber until the back end, and it’s such a shot in the arm for the closing stretches. It has the LP’s best solo (for such a guitary band, they’re relatively conservative on that front), which is teased out in increments before the lead man - who I think is Marty Friedman - really lets rip. It’s a lovely, melodic job, with a bright, Slash-like tone. Even when the tapping and sweeping starts, it still sings beautifully.
Ultimately Rust In Peace’s success all comes down to the balance, between serious subjects and ripping it up in the studio, technical wizardry and sturdy songwriting, light and shade. That care and meticulousness sets it so far ahead of most other entries to this sub genre - that’s how you make a classic.
