So, here we are—the final album from Megadeth. One of the quintessential bands in thrash-metal, held in such esteem as to be among the genre’s Big Four, are hanging it all up and retiring. …Anyone else remarkably underwhelmed by it all? Part of it is down to ‘retirement’ rarely seeming as serious as these aged musical institutions want it to. Remember how Kiss kicked off their farewell tour in the Stone Age and that only ended in 2023? Or how about Mötley Crüe’s contractually obligated cessation of touring that was flouted just a few years later (making way for some of the worst music of their career)? Expect something close to the former for Megadeth, who’ve already prospected live dates up to somewhere between 2029 and 2031. Plenty of time for Dave Mustaine to notice the couple extra dollars he’s not making and change his mind about the whole thing.
On top of that, there’s also how Megadeth’s modern profile just doesn’t hold the same significance as the rest of the Big Four. Metallica are still the metal band, and Slayer and Anthrax’s influence on countless heavy genres is celebrated to this day. Megadeth…opened for Five Finger Death Punch and Disturbed recently. Really fills you with hope for going out on a high, doesn’t it? Almost as much as a decade (at least) of output not in the slightest befitting of a tentpole of their genre. And while all of that already precludes the idea of a spectacular new entry, context is key. Another dollop of manure on an already-coated legacy is nothing in itself, but when there’s meaning ascribed to it? Then it actively begins to stink.
‘Limited’ is the operative word with this album, from every angle of discussion. In fact, that might even be too kind. That implies a band doing what they can within their means, not the 17th album from mainstays of their genre. Instead, Megadeth find themselves responsible for some of the most linear, uninspiring heavy metal you’ll hear put to record in 2026. Calling it ‘thrash’ isn’t even accurate; that would imply there’s some semblance of intensity. Let There Be Shred is the rare flag-bearer of that, though a rewrite of AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock to extol the joys of metallin’ is probably below the pay grade of Megadeth, even at their most unimpressive.
Most often, you’ll be subjected to a listen that slogs under pitiful tempos and production with no firepower to speak of. Even the guitar work and solos—the supposed vaunted halo around this album’s sallow head—only leap out through the lowered standards set. Sure, it’s nice to hear I Don’t Care or Made To Kill rattle along, because the alternatives are unremarkable mid-pacers like Puppet Parade and I Am War, or Another Bad Day as the shallowest possible point. There’s also a sterility to the whole thing that hems it in even more. At no point are you led to feel like flying off the handle is a possibility; it’s just too cold, regimented and unwilling to embrace the fun of thrash-metal.
Even expecting that is far too high a fence to clear, and when its vehement and scrupulous guard dog is named Dave Mustaine, you’ve got no chance. Obviously, comparison to Megadeth’s glory days is unfair when throat cancer left him essentially having to learn to speak again, but even with narrower, accommodating parameters in play, Mustaine sounds shockingly bad. Any emoting required for Hey God?! and The Last Note is a lost cause, and his persona of the raging, raucous thrasher is communicated through sounding mildly peeved at all times. It leaves Another Bad Day as so petty and inconsequential, genuinely a half step from something on that awful Alice Cooper album from last year that no one listened to. But even on his worst days, Cooper can have a levity and sense of humour, compared to sourpuss Dave Mustaine who finds it impossible to mask how old and crabby he sounds.
What’s worse is how the album provides nothing to so much as gesture towards mitigating it. Lyrically, it’s as barren and pedestrian as everything else, a whistlestop tour around entry-level metal subject matter that’s only noteworthy when it’s bad. Emblematic of that is I Don’t Care, a lame kiss-off to nothing and no one that only gets more humiliating under a Megadeth-standard political reading. Mustaine has recently claimed he’s not a right-winger, though this has all the ‘epically own the libs’ energy that your average Facebook-dwelling boomer-ghoul would lap up. Any other ‘commentary’ that appears elsewhere is the picked-clean skeleton of an idea. Puppet Parade posits that society is stifling and no one thinks for themselves—riveting! Later, Made To Kill is an anti-war song that, with the imagery it invokes, is about two decades out of date. Finally, The Last Note wants to be a powerful capstone to Megadeth’s career, having done nothing to earn that privilege after an album that feels as unimportant as this does.
But there’s still the epilogue to discuss—a cover of Metallica’s Ride The Lightning (that’s listed as a bonus track despite appearing on the album’s standard version). And you know what? It’s actually not too bad! For this album, anyway; you still have to move the goalposts to their most generous extremes to reach that point. Yeah, the singing is still bad, but at least there’s competent production, more than this album tends to allow. But at the same time, how can this be seen as a satisfying ending to Megadeth’s career? Forget that Dave Mustaine apparently wants to tour with Metallica again; all this is is, yet again, reheating the same sub-zero tea of Metallica firing Mustaine, and having that colour his own band’s parting moment. Is it meant to be cathartic? A moment of triumph for Mustaine to cut his own version of a classic song he helped write? Well, it’s neither of those things. More than anything, it feels desperate.
At least it’s consistent with the rest of the album, as another decision that leaves you dumbstruck over this being how Megadeth shape their swan song. Clearly, the ‘last day of work’ ethos is abundant within the camp—clock in and do the bare minimum, ‘cause you won’t face any consequences for it. (It doesn’t hurt to be a million-selling legacy act with legions of sycophants who’ll shower praise upon even your worst offerings, either.) And thus, as Megadeth end an already-patchy closing run and go out with the wimpiest of whimpers, it’s not too much of a loss. The three-to-five years of shows to demonstrate this band’s current sorry state should be enough to drill that in. That is, if this album hasn’t already put you off. Which it should have.
For fans of: Megadeth at their worst
‘Megadeth’ by Megadeth is out now on BLKIIBLK / Frontiers Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
