Album Review: Megadeth - Th1rt3en

The toys have been thrown out of the pram, Ellefson has emptied his pockets, Mustaine has found God and now they’re back together, playing and recording music, and all is well in the world. Not only this, but the band are producing show-stopping performances once again, joyously bringing out more of their classic material for headline tours and rising to meet the challenge of playing their part on the Big Four circuit. A perfect time to be heading back into the studio you would think. Then, under pressure to deliver, they go and write an album called Th1rt3en (unlucky for some) and commission cover art that sees mascot Vic Rattlehead showing his back to you. Throw in all the furore kicked up by Mustaine’s gleeful comments about getting out of the band’s Roadrunner contract and the rumor mill is back up and churning away nicely.

I’ve always sworn blind that Megadeth’s peak was in the early 90s, so I was delighted to find that Th1rt3en recreates the same patterns that inhabit the albums from that era. For a start, Th1rt3en is less frenzied than Endgame. It’s hardly laid back, but it’s certainly less of a speed-fest and prefers to thrash out over a mid-paced rhythm, all the while tossing in strong flavors of power metal and rock n’ roll as it travels. The songs have tighter, catchier riffs that all point us directly towards each chorus, where Mustaine picks up the baton and runs in circles repeating the song-title until it lodges itself, irretrievably, in our brains.

Two songs in and I’m recalling parts of Rust In Peace‘s “Hangar 18″ in the key changes, the sharp tongue of Countdown To Extinction‘s “Architecture Of Aggression” and Youthanasia‘s “Reckoning Day” with its ripped chords. The build into the chaotic and brilliantly complex “Sudden Death” is classic, a spiralling solo and a thrilling, skidding riff that pans around your head. Following, “Public Enemy No. 1″ is all bluster and purpose with Mustaine intent on tattooing the four title words to your forehead. All this promise and yet, after a good few run-throughs, it all begins to sound a bit lacklustre. “Whose Life (Is It Anyways?)” turns out to be a limp-wristed shadow that falls apart when it drops the pounded beat (no word of a lie, it reminds me of David Lee Roth’s solo material), “Guns, Drugs & Money” wallows so long in its own filth that it simply forgets to evolve, and the mind-numbingly repetitious “Wrecker” manages to sound more Mötley Crüe than Megadeth.

There’s just so very little bite or sense of foreboding in a lot of this happy-go-lucky rock music they’ve created. Megadeth’s unbeatable sense of pervasive gloom and urgency of delivery is what defines them but save for a handful of tracks, it’s just not present. Their precious dark minor chords are suddenly thin on the ground and, “Millennium Of The Blind” excluded, even the fire of Mustaine’s famed political angst seems to have been extinguished. Who ever thought we’d hear Megadeth dishing out lyrics about life in the “Fast Lane” to a rock n roll backdrop, or hear them goading us with pop swill like “Black Swan”. Mustaine repeatedly offers up the most cumbersome of lyrics – “The soil is red now that you’re dead” from “Deadly Nightshade” or “Like a severed arm washed up on the shore, I just don’t think I can give anymore” from the title-track, and don’t get me started on the rhyming words that are shoehorned in during the chorus of “Public Enemy No. 1″. Johnny K, producer and major contributor, I’m looking at you.

Unfortunately, amidst the carnage caused by so much weak material dragging the album down, superb tracks like “Never Dead”, “New World Order”, “Millennium Of The Blind” and “13″ might just get missed. The former couple are driving, lurching, spitting demons with solos to absolutely die for, whilst the latter duo are heartfelt, colourful anthems. Amongst all the hubbub and flim-flam surrounding the band reaching the landmark of a 13th album, let these tracks not be overlooked. At the end of the day though, it does seem, rather than concentrate solely on delivering an album full of decent music, Megadeth, in some vain attempt to get their tracklisting up to the magic number 13, have gone and produced more filler than killer.

Also online (with samples) @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/megadeth-th1rt3en

Album Review: Premonition 13 - 13

Pepper Keenan (Down, Corrosion Of Conformity) once labelled lead vocalist/guitarist Wino as the “quintessential lifer.” It’s an odd analogy that makes him sound like his time in the music business has somehow imprisoned him. Surely it’s much the opposite – that making his music sets him free. He’s not exactly breaking rocks here, although many of his fans might make their own analogy from that sentence alone. You can see where the term comes from though. His biography certainly speaks like a who’s who of stoner rock with bands like The Obsessed, The Hidden Hand and Spirit Caravan to his name. But, look a little closer and you can see he stands at a crossroads of a number of genres – psych, doom, stoner and good old fashioned rock n’ roll. His more recent projects have seen him breaking out on his own as well as rubbing shoulders with the good and the great – artists like Dave Grohl, Scott Kelly, Al Cisneros, Dale Crover, Geezer Butler, Rob Halford, the list goes on. Now, he arrives at the point where he’s juggling Shrinebuilder and St. Vitus commitments, starting up his own solo career, and now he’s also decided to join forces with guitarist Jim “Sparky” Karow to stir up some of his more deep-seated passions with Premonition 13.

The juicily cryptic band and album titles, the artwork (an animal skull wrapped in a Native American head-dress), knowing that they recorded this under the hot sun of a desert studio and the fact that Premonition 13 is a project that was borne from the main protagonists bonding over a love of ancient cultures and “Mesoamerican stuff”, all suggest that the lyrics would be loaded with words regaling tales of sacred practices and/or the occult. That aspect is there in a couple of tracks but mostly the songs tend to cover subjects that instead relate to the troubled times of society today. “B.E.A.U.T.Y.” points out that the “the doors of Humankind are shutting on your fingers” and “Modern Man” simply warns “Mankind beware, you’ll reap what you seed.” There are also more personal messages like Wino’s cracked voice intoning the words we always expected him to say – “When it’s my time to go away / I wanna die sweatin’ on stage.” Attach onto the back of these lyrics, the fact that we’ve also got “Hard To Say” lurking on here, a cover of a Lethal Intent track, and you can see all may not be quite as it first appears.

It’s great that Ostinato drummer Matthew Clark and Meatjack bassist Brian Daniloski have helped beat two decades of jam sessions into shape. Lord knows how lengthy some of these tracks might have been without their input. Make sure you focus on how Karow and Wino’s guitar parts intertwine around each other, like they belong together, for the lingering opening to “Clay Pigeons”, or Clark’s tribal drums on “Peyote Road”, or the burbling bass grunt that lodges itself deep into sections of “B.E.A.U.T.Y.” – with so much space left around each instrument, there are moments of delightful tranquility and moments of true hammering power. There’s a large wedge of Black Sabbath drone ripping the heart of the music along and much of King Crimson’s blues-streaked majesty (both Wino’s suggestions) dragging the soul into play too. Then there are tracks like “Modern Man” and “Deranged Rock N’ Roller” that just plain rock; tracks that sound more like they come from the brain of fellow “lifer” Lemmy Kilmister; tracks that lie at the pivot-point between his work with Hawkwind and Motorhead.

Wino gets to use lots of his warm, wobbling E-bow throughout the album. The intro to “La Hechicera de la Jeringa” (that roughly translates as “The Sorceress Of The Syringe”) gets a large dose of it. This, and “Peyote Road” do fall into line with those original expectations, but it’s “Senses” that wins the day. Criminally short, but head-swimmingly psychedelic, it blossoms into life with an open chord that is left to echo while yawning bass notes are met by a floating, paper-thin lead solo. Over the top of it all, Wino’s gritty vocal is injected with enough reverb to cause it to split and scatter across several aural planes. It may only be three minutes long but every second of “Senses” puts you into yet a deeper state of relaxation.

In the main, there is a quite a healthy overlap with Wino’s other bands here (it’s kind of Shrinebuilder-lite to the point where you’re almost expecting Neurosis’ Scott Kelly’s mighty roar to burst forth) so, if you were down with any of his former bands, 13 comes highly recommended. If you’re new to Wino’s back catalogue, I’d stick to making sure you check out Shrinebuilder’s self-titled debut first – it’s debatably the finest work of his career. Whatever, you decide, know that this is the work of a legend. The man turns 50 this year. He’s been churning out music for 35 of them. He’s most definitely the quintessential lifer.

Also online (with samples) @ The New Review = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/premonition-13-13