Megadeth
Hidden Treasures

THE REVIEW

Mustaine is not all there, but at least he is consistent.

We are in 1995, Megadeth has just released 'Youthanasia', probably their most commercially successful album, and to take advantage of the favorable moment, it was agreed with the record company to release a thirty-minute album made up of both new songs and covers. And here we return to the matter of consistency; while Metallica was in the studio recording the album that would certify them as... brain-dead, good old Dave (still accompanied by the group that had recorded 'Rust In Peace') manages to craft a good product, not identifiable either in the thrash flurry of their beginnings or in the technicality of 'RIP', nor in the commercial metal of 'Youthanasia', managing to blend a bit of all the experiences in the 5 new songs (even giving a particular personality to the covers).

Mustaine could have continued down the path of 'A Tout Le Monde' (a splendid song but not thrash metal) if he just wanted to find new fans; instead with this CD, he tells those who discovered Megadeth with 'Youthanasia' that this group has a great past full of rage, and Megadeth is angry again.
The CD opens with the most beautiful cover of the batch, that No More Mr. Nice Guy which 22 years earlier had made Alice Cooper's fortune; this remake is really very beautiful, thanks particularly to the superior technical level of Mustaine's band compared to Mr. Furnier's (Friedman and Buxton are not quite the same thing…).

The second track is Breakpoint, close to the sounds of 'RIP' (especially in the rhythmic part), but unfortunately, it doesn't really engage me. With Go To Hell we are more or less on the same level; the initial riff almost seems like a self-plagiarism from Five Magics, but the rest of this song is boring, perhaps the worst on the record. If the 2 previous songs weren't the best, the fourth track succeeds in lifting the mood and justifying the purchase of the album: Angry Again. It had been years since Megadeth had made such an aggressive song and unfortunately for us, it's been years since they made another; this is the last great song signed by Megadeth.
The fifth track is that 99 Ways To Die which is better known for its explicit title than for its quality, which is nonetheless sufficient. We continue with a piece that needs no introduction: Paranoid; the performance is quite faithful to the original, only a little faster. We are now nearing the end; Diadems is a song that would have been at home on 'Youthanasia', and it doesn't look out of place here. And finally, there is Problems, which is the worst cover, both for the lower quality of the song (I was a longtime fan of the Sex Pistols, and if there’s one song I never quite liked, it's Problems) and for its intent to capture “naïve youths” (California punk has just exploded, and there's a rediscovery of various Pistols, Ramones, Damned…).

This work is certainly not comparable to a 'RIP' or a 'CTE' (it wasn't even Megadeth's intent), however, it is enjoyable, especially thanks to that superb song which is Angry Again, with its wicked vocals and that slow yet unstoppable rhythm.