Endgame - Megadeth

Another Megadeth record. To be honest, I didn't know what to think of this one. Two albums ago, I thought Megadeth wrote their best record (The System Has Failed) since their true best (Rust in Peace 20 years ago). When the last one came out (United Abominations), there was a lot of pre-release press about how great it was, and all that. It was a snooze to me. So when I started hearing the same things for this new one, I was leery. Even Dave Mustaine himself said that it was the best thing since Rust in Peace.

After I got it, I thought it definitely was better than UA. Is it as good as Rust in Peace? No, but I did like it. There were some really good tracks here. In fact, as I sit down to write this and look at the track listing, I realized I liked more of this than I thought. My pre-writing thoughts were this was a good album, not great, but as I stop to think about it, I realized I liked it more than my memory says I did. :) The opening track is a typical Megadeth instrumental. Several tracks stick out, but the song Endgame does because of it's message. It's about somethign that happened with George W. Bush getting "powers" that allowed the government to detain US citizens. There's a big story about it in the liner notes. IF you get this album, make sure to read it. More traditional fare would be Headcrusher (the first song from the album) and 44 minutes. Good stuff.

A note about the track "The Hand that Feeds". The opening riff sounds awfully familiar, like I'd heard it in a Megadeth song from the past.

To summarize, Endgame is a pretty darned good Megadeth album. I think I still like TSHF a bit better than this one, but Endgame might be #3 overall now, behind RIP & TSHF.