Megadeth: Anger is an Energy

 

The end of the Megadeth cycle, in true Dave Mustaine style: a calculated, precise closing filled with symbolism. An album that needs no title beyond the band's own name: Megadeth. Because when you've forged a legend over four decades, your name alone is a declaration of war.

In their 1985 debut, Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good!, Mustaine included a song he wrote that Metallica had put on their first album. Now, on his band's final album, Mustaine includes another track from his authorship that appeared on Metallica's second album, also bearing the same title. We're talking first about "Mechanix," which Metallica renamed "The Four Horsemen" for Kill 'Em All, and now "Ride the Lightning," featured on Metallica's second album, titled the same as the song.

None of this is coincidence. We all know that for Mustaine, talking about Metallica has always been complex, painful, even obsessive. Though his relationship with his former bandmates improved over time, for Mustaine it was always an existential motivation to outdo musically those who had expelled him. "Anger is an energy," John Lydon used to say, and for Mustaine, anger was pure nuclear energy: fuel that powered 17 studio albums and four relentless decades of career. My favorite band among the so called Big Four of thrash metal.

Mustaine left songs for Metallica that appeared on their first two albums. From the very beginning, it was important to him to make it clear that he had also been a key piece in the birth of thrash metal. Now, for the finale, Mustaine seems to want to make it clear as well that he was fundamental to its evolution.

And Ride the Lightning by Metallica was key to the transformation of music in the 90s. The sophistication and maturity of Ride the Lightning was the first blow against the status quo of glam metal that dominated MTV and the radio waves. Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction was the second. Nirvana's Nevermind would be the third and definitive strike from the outsiders, marking the end of the glam metal that had ruled much of the 80s.

It's said that Axl Rose used to blast Ride the Lightning at full volume to show off the power of his car's sound system. Rose wanted that mix of raw and aggressive sound, yet with enough sophistication to escape the underground and conquer the world. Producer Mike Clink would be the one tasked with recreating that sound for Guns N' Roses. Metallica was impressed by how far Clink had taken the influence of their music on Guns. They sought Clink for ...And Justice for All, but things didn't work out, Metallica was too accustomed to Flemming Rasmussen.

Mustaine didn't waste time and showed brutal cunning. He hired Mike Clink to produce Rust in Peace (1990). Clink would be the first producer to survive the entire recording process of an album with Mustaine, known for his obsessive perfectionism and volcanic temper. The result was the best album of Megadeth's career, a masterpiece of technical and visceral thrash.

Mustaine perfectly read what had happened and the evolution of the sound he himself had helped create. While Metallica got lost in their own creative labyrinths during the 90s (the era of Load and Reload), Mustaine and Megadeth, creatively, exploded that abrasive, raw, dynamic formula full of venom and lightning fast instrumental talent to the fullest. Albums like Rust in Peace, Countdown to Extinction, and Youthanasia cemented Megadeth as the intellectually and technically superior alternative within thrash.

Now, Mustaine closes his band's cycle and leaves clear clues of his discovery, perhaps trying to remind the world, and his former bandmates, who really was the invisible architect of a sonic revolution. It's not just revenge, it's poetic justice. It's the last chess move of a resentful genius who transformed his pain into transcendent art.