Megadeth
Killing Is My Business... And The Business Is Good!

A dark piano intro accompanied by the bass that then bursts into the anger of few but effective riffs as sharp as a lumberjack's axe... with the furious "Last Rites-Loved To Death" introducing to the world one of the most influential bands in the history of Thrash. Naturally, we are talking about Megadeth, a band born from the outburst of the great Dave Mustaine, kicked in the ass by Metallica. There are many rumors surrounding the reason for his departure, from his known drug problems to the bad relationship that developed with Ulrich and Hetfield, which reached its peak when Dave kicked the latter's dog, but it matters little since the promising group had sent home a great musician who had contributed not insignificantly to the creation of what is effectively the Genesis of Thrash, that is "Kill 'em All" right at the dawn of its recording, leaving all the glory to the Four Horsemen. Could our friend Mustaine not get pissed off about all this? I think not, and the debut of Megadeth is the clear example, the angriest album of thrash-speed par excellence, which exudes fury from every riff... Killing Is My Business... And The Business Is Good!

For the making of this album Megadave, after recruiting his neighbor David Ellefson who annoyed him every day by playing the bass at full volume, decided to complete the line-up with two other renowned musicians of the era, namely Gar Samuelson on drums and Chris Poland on guitar, who replaced a friend of Mustaine who had decided to help him in the early days, a certain Kerry King.
Thus, two years after his departure from Metallica, Megadeth was ready to debut on the American speed scene and I can assure you we are faced with a very good album, even though the masterpieces would come later...

Let’s now move on to a thorough analysis of the tracks, and begin (given that we already talked about the opener) with the title track, which presents itself as a very good song, even though, unlike the classic Megadeth style with three thousand solos per song, it doesn’t have even one, thanks to its progressions. Barely time to finish enjoying it when a kind of quick speed progression gives life to "The Skull Beneath The Skin", another track that stands out for its aggressiveness, but the song that truly tells us what speed means for Megadeth comes now, we are talking about "Rattelhead" which stands out for its fired-up riffs well supported by the whole band and for the beautiful solo. The sixth song is the very short but captivating "Choosen Ones" where David Ellefson also shows that Mustaine was right to gather him into his flock, like all the others, who offer an excellent performance on the next track “Looking Down The Cross”, famous for its dark beginning.
Given and considering that this record reeks miles away of the desire to take revenge on Metallica, Megadave wisely decided to include a song written with his former group in the tracklist, "The Mechanix" which is the early version of the evolved "The Four Horsemen", also included in Hetfield's band's early demo "No Life 'til Leather". We can say that the song is the same as the Kill 'em All version, except for some parts and the lyrics, so I'll say nothing more here, only that the album concludes with "These Boots" a piece inspired by “These Boots Are Made For Walking" by Nancy Sinatra and which had a troubled history as the record label censored the song's words because they were too offensive, and it was reintroduced only in 1996, though still with different lyrics...

In conclusion, I can say that Killing is truly a good work, certainly very underrated both because of the production and the short duration... Certainly light years behind Kill 'em All but to be respected for its notable historical importance and for having paved the way for that beautiful chapter of metal known as Megadeth...

P.S.: I wanted to inform you that the remastered version of the album has recently been released, containing as bonus tracks the demo versions of “Mechanix”, “Last Rites-Loved To Death” and “The Skull Beneath The Skin”.