DATE:
JUNE 2, 2004
FROM:
TODD BRODGINSKI/KRISTINE ASHTON/MITCH SCHNEIDER
MEGADETH--one
of hard rock’s most revered acts--will re-issue seven of their gold-selling
albums July 27 on Capitol Records. The
CDs range from the group’s 1986 debut Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying
to 1999’s Risk plus the 1996 side project MD.45.
Founder, singer, guitarist and primary songwriter Dave
Mustaine spent months remixing, remastering, restoring--and in some
cases reconstructing--the band’s catalog to bring it as close to his original
vision as possible. With each album
packed with unreleased tracks, demos and alternate mixes, along with painfully
honest liner notes from the iconoclastic Mustaine, these are the definitive
editions of MEGADETH’s musical legacy.
The
results across the board on all eight albums are impressive.
Later efforts like Risk benefit from Mustaine’s ruthless
stripping of the pop elements, giving the album a harder, truer sound, but
it’s the earlier efforts like Peace Sells… and So Far So
Good So What that benefit the most. There’s
no question, with the sounds refurbished and maximized, that this was an
undeniably powerful and lethal band, fully deserving their status as one of the
most influential metal acts of the last 20 years. “Some of the songs just
didn't turn out the way that I wanted them to when they were first made, due to
money restrictions, technology limitations and so on,” says Mustaine.
“I believe now that there is nothing standing in the way of what I felt
when I wrote these songs and how you will be able to hear them.”
So
Far… might have
required the biggest overhaul, but every album needed a fair amount of work and,
in some cases, even some re-recording. “You
know, it wasn’t really hard when I first opened up the very first drive to
roll up my sleeves and think, ‘This is gonna be great,’” Mustaine says
now. “But as the project rolled
on and the difficulties started to accumulate, I began to get a little nervous.
When I got to stuff like ‘Take No Prisoners’ (from Rust In Peace),
and it was two o’clock in the morning and we find out that the vocal track is
gone, I was pretty freaked out.”
In
a New York Times live review (8/16/97), Ben Ratliff described
MEGADETH’s mix of speed-metal and straight-ahead rock and roll: “Dave
Mustaine, the band's singer, mastermind and one of its guitarists, has augmented
the repertory with songs that have dynamic developments and emotional contours.
Some proceed as pop songs, which would have been heresy for a speed-metal band a
decade ago. These new songs don't depend on the suffocating rhetoric of speed,
flash and chanted quatrains about power and domination. They use riffs to
different ends, as melodic components rather than purely rhythmic spurs; they
don't fill spaces with long, virtuosic, thousand-note guitar solos.”
These
vital re-issues will be followed by a new as-yet-untitled album from MEGADETH
(due September 14 on Sanctuary Records), which is the first new music from Dave
Mustaine since a freak arm injury sidelined him in 2002.
His arm healed, Mustaine--along with drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and bassist
Jimmy Sloas--recently completed work on the first all-new Megadeth album in
three years. A bruising sample track, “Kick The Chair,” leaked online
by Mustaine, portends great things. “I
think that it has come full circle back to the aggressive, political cynical
lyrics and aggressive guitar riffing that I am famous--or infamous--for,” says
Mustaine. “I feel something very
similar to when I first started out when I hear this new record…it’s
exciting for me and I can't wait for the public to be able to have this record
in their hands.”
MUSTAINE
is currently planning to tour the US beginning in late October, followed by
dates in Europe. Check out
www.megadeth.com for the latest news.
The
re-issued CDs are as follows:
Album
title
Original release date
Peace
Sells…But Who’s Buying? 9/19/86
So
Far So Good So What
1/13/88
Rust
In Peace
9/24/90
Countdown
To Extinction
7/6/92
Youthanasia
11/1/94
The
Craving (MD.45, with Lee
Ving) 1/1/96
Cryptic
Writings
7/17/97
Risk
8/31/99
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