Symphony of Destruction (Megadeth, 1992)

A friend of mine, circa 1992, told me Megadeth has officially "sold out" and that I should avoid their new album Countdown to Extinction at all costs. However, he did like the song "Go To Hell", featured on the Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey soundtrack but not on the album. Having no free thought of my own at this point, plus being cheap, I ended up throwing for this EP, rocking all of three songs: the "radio version" of Countdown's big hit, "Symphony of Destruction"; the oddball B-side "Breakpoint"; and the infamous "Go To Hell".

Later in life, I've encountered people that feel quite the opposite about the album in question, hailing it as their high point. Certainly success (and stability) were a long time coming for Megadeth. Initially born as a hybrid project of Metallica and Slayer, frontman Dave Mustaine cycled through a hefty amount of personnel through the band's first three albums. Hardly the epitome of clean living, Mustaine chose eclectic sidemen that were arguably even less stable than he was. By the time drummer Nick Menza and guitarist Marty Friedman had joined in 1990, at least ten others could lay claim to being members of the band at one point or another in the previous five years. Thanks to a newly-sober Mustaine and profession bandmates, Rust In Peace was a resounding success, and Countdown to Extinction, remarkably, sported the same lineup, which would troop on through 1994's Youthanasia before beginning a slow unraveling.

1992 was a challenging year to be metal. Two bands, Guns N Roses and Metallica, had effectively brought the house down on all the different veins of eighties metal from speed/thrash to glam with huge releases in 1991, while the grunge movement was starting to pulsate out of Seattle and usher in the 1990's for real. Just the previous year, it seemed like Megadeth had produced one of the purest speed metal albums of all time in Rust In Peace, and, in the wake of Metallica's more commercial drift, was becoming the standard-bearer for "real" speed metal. All eyes were on what they would do next, in response to their thrash metal peers.

In hindsight, knowing that far "tamer" albums like Cryptic Writings and Risk were yet to come, Countdown wasn't the end of the world. It would be difficult to deny that Mustaine was making a careful study of what was working for his old band and what he could offer as an alternative. This resulted in an album with a vastly scaled back speed metal sound, but retained the classic heavy metal image in cover art, band appearance, and so forth. The three songs of this EP follow in suit with their companion album. The musicianship is exceptional, but it is clear that the band is actively avoiding the old "thrash" sound that reigned over the first four albums, in favor of heavy riffs and centrality of lyrics and songwriting. It's no surprise that the new technique probably earned the band more new fans than they lost, mainly because the old fans were finding nowhere to turn, with bands like Metallica and Anthrax wandering even further away.

As noted elsewhere, most of these bands would experience some kind of epiphany and bring back their old sound to some degree. Some of them because they were losing their fan base altogether (Anthrax) and others because they showing off their mid-life crises in the studio (Metallica). While these aha moments were typically very conscious acts, facilitated by new producers, it seemed like Megadeth largely lurched around from one side to the other in the years following Youthanasia. That album was continued move toward more "song" style Megadeth, a trend that peaked with Risk in 1999. Maybe it had to do with the Republicans retaking the White House, but the next album, on a new label, unleashed some fire not seen since the Rust In Peace days, yet it was largely sandwiched inside the more comfortable style. What would have followed remained a question mark for some time. While Mustaine's arm injury was the official cause of the "breakup" in 2002, it was also the end of a band that had, by later accounts, become dysfunctional to the point of inoperability. Mustaine reformed the band with all-new personnel in 2004, ratcheting up the speed-metal sound with each release, though the sing-songy style still sneaked in throughout. I gave up on the band after United Abominations, as it seemed like conspiracy-theory Dave Mustaine was overtaking the music, and I heard the last album, Super Collider, was described as yet another move away from speed metal. I'm spending my time addressing the holes in my collection of the earlier material, which feels like a better use of my time. One thing I will concede to Mustaine, Ellefson, and Co. - they don't let too much time elapse between releases. With fourteen studios albums to their name, they are one of the most productive bands around, and that is certainly noteworthy.