Megadeth | ‘Endgame’

The last couple of Megadeth albums have been pretty decent. “The System Has Failed” was uneven but had some very good songs on it and “United Abominations” was a step down in the grand sceheme of things but solid enough.

Essentially, however, the whole exercise has served as a massive tease; Mustaine shows just enough to let you know he’s still got it before wussing out and slowing down halfway through the album.

Endgame does not do this. On first listen I spent the entire 44 minute-odd runtime waiting for the other shoe to drop and it never happened. Overall this is a much pacier album than the last two and doesn’t pull the nasty trick of front-loading the tracklist with the best two or three songs and leaving the rest of the album hanging limply.

Out of a total 11 tracks I can honestly say that only a couple of songs drop below standard. The rest is much more reminiscent of “Countdown To Extinction” as well as the latest material.

On the production side this is standard issue Andy Sneap: the overall sound has a lot more punch to it than United Abominations and the drums are a lot higher in the mix which helps the album overall. The individual instrument sounds do leave a bit to be desired - the guitars are digitally distorted, the bass is filthily overdriven but nearly inaudible and the drums sound either triggered or overly EQed.

None of this should come as a surprise but a sound more similar to The System Has Failed would have suited the material.

The crucial element that the last two have been missing and that Endgame has is the frequent and smooth changes in pace that songs like “Skin Of My Teeth” and “High Speed Dirt” had and it’s present throughout the faster songs here. The literal and figurative centrepieces “1320″ and “Bite The Hand” are particularly reminiscent of the faster material off CTE and when the album does slow down there are excellent riffs to be had in “How The Story Ends”. The whole thing had better riffs, better structure and sounds a lot sharper.

If you don’t like Megadeth don’t bother with this. If you do, this represents a step up. Marks are dropped for the couple of dodgy tracks and the fact that this album is up against obviously stiff competition in the back catalogue but make no mistake this is well worth your time.

3.8/5 - Dave Gillespie ::: 20/10/09