Mar 30, 2004 02:21 PM
2629 Views
(Updated Mar 30, 2004 02:21 PM)
Youthanasia is a pretty unremarkable album. It is definately not Megadeth's best album (R.I.P. holds that title). It is not everyones first choice for album when deciding to venture into the realm of Megadeth. Youthanasia has yielded 3 particularly famous tracks - Train of Consequences, Reckoning Day, and A Tout Le Monde. Apart from this the other tracks are fairly mundane in comparison to their earlir work. These other tracks are by no means bad, but they just don't hold the same intensity, musicianship, punch as the tracks on R.I.P., Peace Sells, TWNAH, or Countdown do. Some of the tracks such as The Killing Road, the title track, Addicted to Chaos, and the three mentioned above are cool with some heavy riffs, cool solos from Marty Friedman, sweet drumming from Nick Menza, and some nice easy rhythms from Dave himself. Ellefson is pretty much wasted on this album, simply relegated to the background for most of the album. Dave has written some particularly insightful and meaningful lyrics in this album. They are more relevant to his life and they give the songs purpose and meaning. They stretch to some fairly crude topics such as incest (the Family Tree), and drug use (Addicted to Chaos), but no-one said metal was nice. The biggest problem with this album is that it cements Megadeth firmly in their 'radio phase' in which they perform 3 minute songs of a strict formula. In the more muso-ish day of old and recently with their album The World Needs a Hero Megadeth play at a more difficult, hardcore level, whereas this album begins a radio-slide which ends bottoms out with Risk.
On the whole this album isn't one of their best, and if you were deciding which one to buy first I'd suggest R.I.P. or Peace Sells.. But if you are into less muso, more radioish songs then you would do well to choose this album.
