Megadeth’s New Album, The Sick, the Dying, and the Dead to Arrive This Spring

Megadeth’s highly-anticipated new album, The Sick, the Dying, and the Dead, will finally be released in the spring of 2022.

This according to Megamastermind Dave Mustaine himself, who tells American Songwriter magazine that the record’s title refers not to the pandemic or his recent battle with cancer, but, rather, to the 14th century bubonic plague (a.k.a. “Black Death”):

“It’s a historical journey of how the plague started and where it went, starting with rats on ships carrying the disease, coming ashore in Sicily. ‘Ring Around the Rosie’ was the ring on your cheek, the [rash] that would show on your cheeks from the plague.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Mustaine reveals that much of the music on the album is comprised of ideas that he’s had sitting in a drawer for years:

“A lot of the riffs have been saved over time. A brand new song can be made up of something I wrote when I was 15 or 55. If It’s a good riff, I’ll save it.”

The Sick, the Dying, and the Dead will be Megadeth’s first new album since firing bassist David Ellefson amidst a sex scandal earlier this year. The band has since Ellefson’s bass lines re-recorded. Although their former bassist, James LoMenzo, re-joined them for a recent tour with Lamb of God, it’s not clear if he’s also the bassist who re-did Ellefson’s parts.

[via Lambgoat]