ARTIST: Megadeth
ALBUM: TH1RT3EN
LABEL: Roadrunner Records
RELEASE DATE: September 13, 2011
Lucky TH1RT3EN
Photo by Travis Shinn
Written by Paul Lyons
If you travel 35 miles north of San Diego, you might run into a seemingly quiet California town called San Marcos. Founded by the Spanish in the 18th century, the city covers 24 square miles, and hosts a variety of notable businesses such as UPS, Costco, and Vic’s Garage. Never heard of Vic’s Garage? Perhaps, then, you might be familiar with the “garage” owners; a thrash metal quartet from Los Angeles called Megadeth. You’ve heard of them, right? Well, Vic’s Garage happens to be the name of Megadeth’s recording studio, and they’ve cut a brand new album there called TH1RT3EN.
Lead by the legendary singer/songwriter/guitarist Dave Mustaine, Megadeth has had a variety of lineup changes over the course of 28 years. For its 13th studio release, Mustaine holds court with Chris Broderick on guitar, Shawn Drover on drums, and back in the fold after an 8-year absence, original bassist David Ellefson.
Produced by Johnny K (a.k.a. John Karkazis), TH1RT3EN presents Megadeth as you’ve come to know them best: loud, hard, fast, angry, unforgiving and downright brutal. Listen to the first cut, “Sudden Death,” and you’ll hear 55-seconds of wailing guitars against a Bolero-style drum march. And this is just the intro. The song proper is a hardcore fist-pumper that talks of evil and divine punishment. Continuing on the path of evil deeds, TH1RT3EN’s first single comes next, an Al Capone-inspired gem called “Public Enemy No.1.” You wonder with lyrics like “I’m unbeatable/My mind is untreatable/Crimes unrepeatable…” if the character in the song is confessing or just boasting about his not-so-noble attributes?
Shifting gears, TH1RT3EN’s third single (and arguably best song) is “Whose Life (Is It Anyways?), a catchy number that thrashes hard with a pounding rhythm and scornful lyrics like, “You tell me how to live, but who asked you anyway?” You can really hear the bitterness in Dave Mustaine’s voice when he sings “You hate everything you’ve seen in me/Have you looked in a mirror?”
The mid-tempo “We the People” and the ruthless “Millennium of the Blind” both delve into two of Megadeth’s favorite subjects: politics and war. On “We the People,” Mustaine sings “Our founding fathers are rolling in their graves/The land of liberty needs a regime change.” On “Blind,” Mustaine belts out “Blind follow, blind lead/All our hopes and dreams washed out to sea.” These are serious words from a serious band, yet Megadeth shows a hint of mercy on “Guns, Drugs & Money” as Mustaine sings “Poverty will turn the life of any good man bad. All love and mercy ever learned, he’ll soon forget what he had.”
“Never Dead” (TH1RT3EN’s 2nd single) hits you with rapid beats as Mustiane sings ambivalently, “It’s right to be feeling wrong.” “Fast Lane” is another standout track, which employs various rhythms before going for full-on thrash mode at the end. In a trick of clever album sequencing, the song merges perfectly into “Black Swan,” a 4/4 barnburner with a killer chorus of “Just like a churchyard shadow, creeping after me/It’s only there to terrify my mind, a black swan keeps haunting me.”
To close out TH1RT3EN, Dave Mustaine goes for broke with the album’s title track, “13,” an autobiographical account of his life’s work. He sings “At thirteen I started down this path/Fueled with anger, music was my wrath.” Megadeath has always been Mustaine’s band, and he’s survived multiple line-up changes, drugs, alcohol and severe nerve damage to his left arm.
TH1RT3EN is a fierce and commanding celebration of everything Megadeth was, is and always will be. If you’re a fan, this is the album you’ve been waiting for.