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Megadeth – Rust In Peace demos (1990)
Rust In Peace, a pivotal album in the global metal movement in 1990, is one of those works whose importance is difficult to fully describe, at least in any language spoken by humans. To avoid yet another declaration of love (which I would do without holding back) and not to bore the fans who, like me, want something different once in a hundred times, I will talk about only 3 songs, and specifically about their demos.
In 1988, after firing the talented Chuck Behler and Jeff Young, Dave Mustaine, singer/guitarist as well as leader and main composer of Megadeth, falls apart. Years of excesses, hardships, and feuds with his first band (Mustaine was the original lead guitarist for Metallica) force the invincible redhead to retire to a clinic to detox from alcohol and drugs. Bassist David Ellefson, Mustaine’s loyal partner in adventure and co-leader, does the same shortly before him. The band is at a standstill, but when the two Daves get back in shape, they quickly recruit the supersonic drummer Nick Menza, son of Don, a saxophonist best remembered for playing the Pink Panther theme. The three are in sync, and there’s talk of an album that will revolutionize the history of metal and rock in general, something that will surpass any hard metal album previously produced by any band. For a great plan, great minds are needed, and Megadeth starts searching for a new lead guitarist. Mustaine contacts a young Canadian, Jeff Waters, leader of Annihilator, but nothing comes of it. At this point, he turns his eyes south, towards scorching Texas, and when he is about to recruit the legendary Dimebag Darrell, guitarist of Pantera, he has to back out. The Texan guitarist indeed doesn’t agree to join Megadeth unless his brother, Vinnie Paul, accompanies him. The band has already bonded with drummer Menza and the deal falls through. Mustaine is exhausted. He searches and searches, but in his heart, he knows there’s only one lead guitarist for Megadeth, and he knows where to find him.
Somewhere, Chris Poland is playing bass with the punkers Cyrcle Jerks and isn’t doing too bad. Two albums recorded with Megadeth between '84 and '87 and now this new collaboration, he’s a musician finally beginning to see the fruits of his hard work. The news hits him like a bolt from the blue: “Dave wants you back in the band.” After being fired by Mustaine two years earlier for continuous clashes with the leader, Dave presses to bring him back into the band. Days pass, the phone calls increase. “Are you joining us again or not?” “Will you come to the meeting?” “Do you want to record some demos?” Chris joins Megadeth in the studio and records solos for 3 songs, still in the demotape state. “Rust In Peace… Polaris” is a song about war, a deadly bomb capable of extinguishing the planet forever. “Holy Wars… The Punishment Due” also narrates war, and “Take No Prisoners” does the same. On the three songs, Chris records stunning solos that make the rest of the band shine. Poland is in top form, unfolding scales and unpredictable phrasings with a unique flair, once again proposing himself as the successor to Allan Holdsworth (king of fusion guitar) in metal. Everything seems to be going the right way. The demos are ready, you can tell the songs have something special, the band is almost ready to set out, but a voice breaks in and disrupts the idyllic silence of euphoria. Chris Poland's manager, perhaps scared of losing her place in favor of Megadeth's more professional management, persuades the guitarist not to reunite with his old band. “You'll die, you're clean and they’re not,” “after 3 weeks you'll start using again,” “you’ll croak.” Chris is torn. He knows that, like his friend Gar (Samuelson, the first official drummer of Megadeth and a member alongside Poland), he's at risk. But is it really that dangerous to reunite with the band? Probably we will never know. Just when the play is almost concluded, Chris announces he doesn't want to reunite with the group. Mustaine and Ellefson are shocked. They immediately fall back on Marty Friedman, guitarist of Cacophony, already for a while the ideal second choice in case the reunion with Poland didn’t work out, and the rest is Rust In Peace.
Those demos, those legendary recordings with Chris on guitar, are available on the remastered edition of R.I.P. from 2004.
Megadeth continued their climb to megasuccess. Poland released his first solo album, the excellent “Return To Metalopolis,” in the same period as R.I.P. If you're curious to hear what Rust In Peace sounds like with Megadeth's first guitarist, rediscover those demos.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Holy Wars... The Punishment Due (06:36)
Brother will kill brother
Spilling blood across the land
Killing for religion
Something I don't understand
Fools like me, who cross the sea
And come to foreign lands
Ask the sheep, for their beliefs
Do you kill on God's command?
A country that's divided
Surely will not stand
My past erased, no more disgrace
No foolish naive stand
The end is near, it's crystal clear
Part of the master plan
Don't look now to Israel
It might be your homelands
Holy wars
Upon my podium, as the
Know it all scholar
Down in my seat of judgement
Gavel's bang, uphold the law
Up on my soapbox, a leader
Out to change the world
Down in my pulpit as the holier
Than-thou-could-be-messenger of God
Wage the war on organized crime
Sneak attacks, repel down the rocks
Behind the lines
Some people risk to employ me
Some people live to destroy me
Either way they die, they die
They killed my wife and my baby
With hopes to enslave me
First mistake.....last mistake!
Paid by the alliance, to slay all the giants
Next mistake.....no more mistakes!
Fill the cracks in, with judical granite
Because I don't say it, don't mean I ain't thinkin' it
Next thing you know, they'll take my thoughts away
I know what I said, now I must scream of the overdose
And the lack of mercy killings, mercy killings, mercy killings, killings, killings, killings
Next thing you know they'll take my thoughts way
02 Hangar 18 (05:14)
Welcome to our fortress tall
Take some time to show you around
Impossible to break these walls
For you see the steel is much too strong
Computer banks to rule the world
Instruments to sight the stars
Possibly I've seen too much
Hangar 18 I know too much
Foreign life forms inventory
Suspended state of cryogenics
Selective amnesia's the story
Believed foretold but who'd suspect
Military intelligence
Two words combined that can't make sense
Possibly I've seen too much
Hangar 18 I know too much
03 Take No Prisoners (03:28)
Got one chance, infiltrate them
Get it right, terminate them
The Panzers will, permeate them
Break their pride, denigrate them
And their people, retrograde them
Typhus, deteriate them
Epidemic, devastate them
Take no prisoners, cremate them
Going to war, give'em hell
D-Day, next stop Normandy
Beginning of the end
Whe know how to and sure as shit we'll win
War is peace sure man
A retreat for the damned
A playground for the demented
A haven for those who walk his world
Bereft of heart and soul
Love and war they say all is fair
Take his life
But won't take his hair
Your body has parts your
Country can spare
By the way son here's
Your wheelchair
He once had to be all he could be
Now he's nothing for no one nowhere to see
Funny thing, he's like you & me
It's funny thing, a funny thing
Tears streak his solemn stare
Abondoned for wreckage nobody cares
No one knew what would happen there
No one spoke no one even dared
Don't ask what you can do for your country
Ask what you country can do for you
Take no prisoners, take no shit
04 Five Magics (05:42)
Bestow upon me magic
Wizard, all knowing, all wise
I want to rule this kingdom
Make sweet the breeze now defiled
Dethrone the evil prince's iron fists
In velvet gloves of sin
Parade the grey robed monks
The vestal virgins, wheel the wyvern's in
Let the ceremony consecrate the marriage
Let me be the protege of Five Magics
Give me alchemy, give mewizardry
Give me sorcery, thermatology
Electricity, master all of these,
magic if you please , bring him to his knees
I master five magics, I master five magics
I master five magics, I master five magics
Possessed with hellish torment, possessed with hellish torment
I master magics five, I master magics five
Hunting the abyss lord, hunting the abyss lord
Only one will stay alive, only one will stay alive
He who lives by the sword, he who lives by the sword
Will surely also die, will surely also die
He who lives in sin, he who lives in sin
Will surely live the lie
05 Poison Was the Cure (02:58)
I miss the warm embrace I felt
First time you touched me
Secure and safe in open arms
I should have known you'd crush me
A snake you were when we met
I loved you anyway
Pulling out your poisoned fangs
The venom never goes away
Serpent swims free in my blood
Dragons sleeping in my veins
Jackyl speaking with tongue
Roach egg laying in my brain
Once stalked beneath your shadow
Sleepwalking to the gallows
I'm the sun that beats your brow in
Til I finally threw the towel in
Never knowing if I'd wake up in a
Whirlpool got redundant
My brain was just some driftwood
In a cesspool I became dead
From a rock star to a desk fool
Was my destiny someone said
Loves a tidepool
Taste the waters life's abundant
Taste me
06 Lucretia (03:58)
Sitting up late at night
I tiptoe through the darkness
Cold as hell, black as spades
Aware of my immediate surrounding
In my place I escape
Up into my hideout
Hiding from everyone
My friends all say
Dave you're mental any way hey!
Drift into a deeper state
I stalk the cobwebbed stairways
Dirt grits beneath my feet
The stair creaks, I precariously sneak
Hypnosis guides my hand
I slipslide through the walkways
Sit in granny's rockin' chair
Memories are whirling by yeah
Reminisce in the attic
Lucretia waits impatiently
Cobwebs make me squint
The cobra so eloquently glints
Moonbeams surge through the sky
The crystal ball's energized
Surely that like the cat waiting
Lucretia rocks away
07 Tornado of Souls (05:22)
This morning I made the call
The one that ends it all
Hanging up, I wanted to cry
But dammit, this well's gone dry
Not for the money, not for the fame
Not for the power, just no more games
But now I'm safe in the eye of the tornado
I can't replace the lies, that let a 1000 days go
No more living trapped inside
In her way I'll surely die
In the eye of the tornado, blow me away
You'll grow to loathe my name
You'll hate me just the same
You won't need your breath
And soon you'll meet your death
Not from the years, not from the use
Not from the tears, just self abuse
Who's to say, what's for me to say...be...do
Cause a big nothing it'll be for me
The land of opportunity
The golden chance for me
My future looks so bright
Now I think I've seen the light
Can't say what's on my mind
Can't do what I really feel
In this bed I made for me
Is where I sleep, I really feel
I warn you of the fate
Proven true to late
Your tongue twist perverse
Come drink now of this curse
And now I fill your brain
I spin you round again
My poison fills your head
As I tuck you into bed
You feel my fingertips
You won't forget my lips
You'll feel my cold breath
It's the kiss of death
08 Dawn Patrol (01:50)
Thermal count is rising
In perpetual writhing
The primordial ooze
And the sanity they lose
Awakened in the morning
To more air pollution warnings
Still we sleepwalk off to work
While our nervous systems jerk
Pretending not to notice
How history had forebode us
With the green house in effect
Our environment was wrecked
Now I can only laugh
As I read our epitaph
We end our lives as moles
In the dark of dawn patrol
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Other reviews
By cliffburton86
Megadeth's Rust In Peace is a masterpiece that marked the era of thrash metal.
Hangar 18 is the thrash metal experience that shattered the world, leaving believers of true metal on one side and fools on the other.
By Enrico Rosticci
"Rust In Peace proves to be an indestructible work."
"A colossal example of techno-thrash in which the group showcases all its talent."
By andreus90
Holy Wars and especially Hangar 18, the true tracks that kick ass.
Stunning Speed/Thrash Metal album for the old Megadeth, absolutely to have in your discography as soon as possible.
By giuseppe 83
In my opinion, this is not only an album that represents the quintessence of 80s thrash metal, but also one of the best heavy metal albums.
Nothing is wasted here. It’s all perfect, incredible but true.
By Sanza
Marty Friedman is indeed the winning element of this album: his astounding solos are a testament to his flawless compositional technique and versatility.
Perfection doesn’t exist, but I am tempted to attribute it to this album.
