Review: Megadeth’s Super Collider is a Super Catastrophe
Super Collider is undoubtedly the worst Megadeth album since 2001’s The World Needs a Hero, and it is very possibly as bad as 1999’s infamous Risk. If it isn’t as baffling a misstep as St. Anger, The Unspoken King, or Illud Divinum Insanus, that’s only because it doesn’t have the balls to be as gloriously fucknuts wrong as those albums. But it is still, in every imaginable way, misguided, laughable, and embarrassing.
This isn’t metal — it’s muzak, an album populated predominantly by old man rock that is guaranteed to make the listener wonder, “What the hell was he thinking?”
The “he,” of course, is Dave Mustaine, who surely could have used a creative atom bomb to redeem his public image right about now. Instead, he’s released a creative wet fart. The title track‘s awfulness is already the stuff of legend, and I doubt if songs like “Forget to Remember,” “Burn!”, and “Cold Sweat” [Which is apparently a Thin Lizzy cover. Doesn’t make it a better song. -AR] will be any more popular amongst the fan base. If not for Mustaine’s distinctive vocals, it would be easy to convince someone that these were very-well produced demos by the local Anvil. And the fact that the songs are the musical equivalent of a conversation with a dead frog means that the listener’s mind will inevitably wander, and he or she will most surely notice that the songs’ lyrics are so bad that you almost have to think Mustaine deliberately wrote a comedy album. Some of my favorites include —
Dave Mustaine as a professional wrestler on “Built for War”:
“You called down the thunder
Truly now there’s no way out
Nothing’s gonna stop me
Until then, better watch your back!”
Dave Mustaine as an upset Jewish mother on “Forget to Remember”:
“Sands in the hour glass fall for us all
You don’t answer me anymore when I call
So much trapped inside, ooh, tangled in your brain
It’s getting cold outside and it looks like rain”
Dave Mustaine as an inspirational refrigerator magnet on “Dance in the Rain” (featuring David Draiman from Disturbed, Device, Deficient, etc.):
“You’d better learn to dance in the rain
Instead of wait for the sun
Learn to dance in the rain!”
And, of course, Dave Mustaine as a social activist:
“Hooked up with Mr. Right Now
A nightmare that stole her dreams
The complications come
The doctor says, ‘You gotta know
You decide if the baby lives,
But one of you has got to go!’”
And:
“Brought forth in agony
This life was misbegot
Born in an alleyway
A child nobody will adopt
Delinquent in a foster home
His heart is so full of rage
His first name is ‘Ward’
His last name is ‘Of the State’”
I mean. Dude. COME ON.
The album’s two brightish spots, “Don’t Turn Your Back” and “Kingmaker,” are acceptable (if watered-down and unremarkable) thrash, stuff that might have fit in on United Abominations or possibly even Youthanasia. In fact, “Don’t Turn Your Back” actually starts off very promisingly, with what sounds like someone jamming on Hendrix’s “Little Wing” before launching into a truly righteous riff… that leads you to another boring uncle metal chorus with more terrible lyrics. Ultimately, even a killer Chris Broderick solo can’t redeem the song. And, again — that’s the best track on the album. By a mile.
In short: this album sucks shit. I foolishly assumed that Mustaine had learned from his mistakes and would, at minimum, release records that were at least serviceable for the remainder of his career. But Super Collider makes Death Magnetic sound like Master of Puppets. Whoda thunk it?
