Album Review : Megadeth - The Sick, The Dying... and The Dead! (2022)
The band Megadeth is a little like pizza. They're often great. Sometimes they're average. They can suck, but it's extremely rare that they do. My point is: the ingredients are always the same. You know what you're getting with them. Dave Mustaine is never going to wake up one morning and become the table. Given the trajectory of their career over the last decade, it was predictable that their new album The Sick, The Dying… and The Dead would slap and it totally does, but not the way Endgame of Dystopia did.
The Sick, The Dying… and The Dead is a lot funnier.
Sonically, this album is very much in the wheelhouse of any good Megadeth album. What it lacks in originality, it makes up in such straightforward earnestness that it sometimes veers into parody. It is usually never good when a band becomes a parody of themselves, but I believe Dave Mustaine should be excused from this rule since taking him seriously is usually detrimental to the enjoyment of his music. The more you consider him like a cartoon character, the better his music gets. Especially now that he's elderly.
The first song that indulges in what is best described as 'overmustainitude' is the overcaffeinated, hypermasculine Night Stalkers, which is in my humble opinion the best song on the record. It's as good as anything they've ever done. Closer to pure thrash metal than to the catchier material Megadeth is capable of, Night Stalkers shines through its pummelling interpretation, strong chorus and Dave Mustaine's ultra melodramatic rendition of a robust hit squad wandering in the desert. I live for shit like this.
Oh yeah and Ice-T is on it. No idea why, but it works!
Soldier On! is another killer military track that would put anything Five Finger Death Punch ever recorded to shame. Chuggier and catchier than Night Stalkers, it is carried through by another monster of a chorus to harmonize to. Say what you want about Dave Mustaine, but he can slap any testosterone-fueled cliché together and sign them with enough conviction to crank up the intensity. I have never done cocaine, but I can't imagine it being that more intense than listening to these two songs back to back.
The last two songs on the records are also memorable bangers, but with a curious agenda. Police Truck is Megadeth’s anti-police song, where Mustaine tells the story of horrible, psychopathic cops, that slaps way too hard for its own good. Someone is definitely going to do something horrible while playing it one day. The Planet’s on Fire (Burn in Hell) is one of the best Van Halen songs I've ever heard. No idea what it does on a Megadeth record, but Sammy Hagar absolutely rips alongside our favourite ginger.
Life in Hell is another song that deserves mention. Again more on the thrashier side (exploiting both sides of Megadeth is really a strength of this record), it's fast, crunchy and it pulls no punches. It's perhaps not the most complex Megadeth songs, but the line: I'm a disease and I'm addicted to myself is so ridiculously strong and indicative of the zeitgeist. It's one of these choruses that feels great to sing out loud. I'm not crazy of the spoken word bridge on it, but whatever. It's still metal as fuck.
Although it has some generational 'Old Man Mustaine not giving a fuck' moments, I wouldn't quite call The Sick, The Dying… and The Dead a classic. There are some down moments on the record and some moments I don't know what to do with. Dogs of Chernobyl is one of these head scratchers. The song is undoubtedly catchy enough to be on Countdown to Extinction of Youthanasia, but why is he harmonizing about radiation sickness? Like dude, what the fuck are you even talking about?
The Sick, The Dying… and The Dead has some of these more typical 'Dave Mustaine is yelling at clouds again' moments, which is what you would expect from his media persona. Célébutante is a stereotypical rant about Instagram celebrity that lacks the aggression of the better songs. Junkie is so walking the line between the aggressive and the catchy Megadeth that it just sounds like a boring compromise. Two or three songs shorter, The Sick, The Dying… and The Dead would've been an all-timer.
*
Dave Mustaine is at his best when he's trying to either out-Dave Mustaine himself or out-metal the most metal material he's ever written and he tries his hardest to do that on The Sick, The Dying… and The Dead. It's a fun record. It has one the best songs he's ever written, five or six memorable bangers and some robust, but unnecessary songs. It's not as consistently good as Endgame or Dystopia, but it's a good Megadeth record, which makes it better than most new records.
Just don't take them too seriously, for fuck’s sake.
