album review : Th1rt3en (2011) - Megadeth

album : Th1rt3en

artist : Megadeth

genre : Speed/Thrash Metal, Heavy Metal/Rock

year : 2011

Bang opens the new album by Megadeth, the only other band that deserves to be a part of the big four at the moment alongside Anthrax, with Sudden Death having instant solos that you’ve not heard before. The album name Th1rt3en might not come across as metal, but the daring front-man Dave Mustaine, who owns one of the coldest stares in the  scene, returns with my pick for one of this year’s best heavy/thrash album.

All the thirteen tracks on Th1rt3en are going to make you pop your ears out and place it besides the speakers that are lucky enough to blast Megadeth‘s latest. If you don’t like Mustaine‘s vocals then you need to get a life before you play this one because you have to deal with a lot of it on Th1rt3en. Nobody can sing like him and he is the nobody here! Mustaine‘s voice hasn’t withered one bit, you posers. Not one bit.

Songs where Megadeth is doing things the old way are Public Enemy No. 1, We The People, Black Swan and Deadly Nightshade. Did you complain about no thrash? Oh wait, then you have to hear Whose Life (Is It Anyways?), Never Dead and Fast Lane. In fact Never Dead is fvcking speed/thrash in your ugly face. There is nothing out and out thrashy on this record, except some parts here and there, but that’s what is the beauty of mixing heavy and thrash metal.

The best song on the album and quite possibly one of the most kickass metal song of the year is New World Order. Both guitarists are out on a riffing spree and they won’t stop even if you beg them to.

Millennium Of The Blind is like the next edition of A Tout le Monde, with lesser soul in it. Does Megadeth leave any subject untouched or what! Check out the track Guns, Drugs & Money, especially the lyrics.

13, the title track and the last and thirteenth song on the album is, in a nutshell, a teaser for their next record. Watch out for the subtle signals the band gives with the pace and the whole approach towards the song. It’s like they’re saying, ‘You need more new material by Megadeth, wait for our next full-length‘. We’re waiting Dave. Eagerly.

Where your expectations of solos on a heavy metal album ends, that’s where songs on Th1rt3en begin. Dave and co. have sky rocketed in terms of songwriting, controlled compositions, instrument utilization and raping their contemporaries by doing only what is required and doing it the right way. This has been my observation not only on this record but since several of their previous ones.

Off their last few releases, I thought both United Abominations as well as Endgame had mind-blowing content with respect to quality, genre and phase of the band’s career. I give Th1rt3en a rating of 4.5 on 5 which means that I would be playing the album for the remaining part of the year. Cheers Dave, cheers Megadeth! Thank you for these roses on our grave, we are humbled.

Rating : 4.5/5

Last seven 2011 albums reviewed on the blog : Cradle of Filth’s Evermore Darkly | Insomnium’s One For Sorrow | Iced Earth’s Dystopia | Thulcandra’s Under a Frozen Sun | Textures’s Dualism | Evil’s Five Serpent’s Teeth | Mastodon’s The Hunter

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