ROCKET REVIEW: MEGADETH – “United Abominations” (CD)

Released by Roadrunner records May 15th, 2007 United Abominations is Dave Mustaine’s eleventh swing at Metallica’s glory since he was thrown out of the band for being what equated to behaving as a ruder drinker than Ulrich and Hetfield. It features the debut studio recording with new Megadeth members: brothers Drover (Glen & Shawn) including former Black Label Society bassist James Lomenzo. The first track ‘Sleepwalker’ starts off with a sappy synth-intro like something Ozzy is known for doing lately and then quickly erupts into a ‘not quite A-game Dave-chugger riff’ with the blow-hard, posturing lyrics: “I should be calling collect from jail for the things I commit each night in my head,” supposedly speaking to the continued torment that the ex-Metallica member goes through since having gotten the boot from the biggest metal act of all time. This is not classic Megadeth by a long stretch, nowhere near the band’s greatest lineup with Menza, Ellefson and Friedman from the good ole Countdown To Extinction days, but it’s actually better than anything Megadeth has put out since 1999’s debacle ‘radio-friendly-bitch’ Risk, which doesn’t say much entirely because The White Stripes have been heavier than Megadeth in the past 8 years… and guess what? They are an alt-rock blues act… with only two people in the band… no bass player… and a drummer for a chick! Trust me on this one too, I saw that “Jack-Me-Off” White live… and point blank, that six-string beast lost in Country bumpkin fashion-land should be the new guitarist in Megadeth and then we would actually be somewhere interesting with this band again.

Don’t get me entirely wrong, the second track ‘Washington Is Next’ is a wee bit more in line with some of the more respectable fret work from the past that we’ve come to know and love from the pissed off one. But honestly, the entire song structure sounds like remnant outtakes from all the over-produced, shittier albums since Countdown… like Dave’s busted up hand never really fully ever repaired, along with his Heroin’d out mind, and so he just sits back in the studio like some homogenized zombie metaler and breaks out his own formulaic collection of McDonalds meets Megadeth music tablature for the rest of the new band to study before they lay this shit down! The album’s title track ‘United Abominations’ is a perfect example. This song is so much of the same that I actually thought that I must’ve mistakingly started playing the prior song again. And I don’t know about all of you but I am so sick and tired of the intermittant ‘voice-over’ narratives, intended to intimidate or make one bite their nails off in fright, that always appear throughout Megadeth songs… and just plain elementary school lyrics like “Another mushroom cloud, another smoking gun, The threat is real, the Locust King has come.” Would someone tell me how a political song about the war in Iraq ends up referring to the leader of a swarming phase of short-horned grasshoppers?

Now all this condemnation going around and causing enough tension in my own mind to make me want to shoot up a speed ball large enough to kill a water buffalo, the next song ‘Gears Of War’ is actually one of the best things I’ve heard Dave write since ‘Trust’. But here we go again with the next sheepish, moronic slug of a metal tune when quite possibly the most ”trite’ metal song I have ever heard ‘Blessed be The Dead’, and the following lyrics: “A great sign appeared, Under the stars and the moon, Sounds of galloping horses On clouds of lightning and thunder.” And the guitar solo in this ‘thing’ is so contrived and ‘screechy’ and ‘tinny’ sounding it reverts one back to the days of the fat pimply ‘strange kid’ in sixth grade scratching his fingernails across the chalkboard in hopes that someone will throw something at him so he feels love from ANYONE! The next line of lyrics oughta be: “How much more can I take, this pile of crap is giving me a toothache!” The next thing that strikes me nearly comatose on track seven’s ‘Play For Blood’ is that Dave’s vocals are way too loud in the mix! I have a hard enough time taking his aging “Mr. Furly went metal” nasal whine. Do you really have to turn it up over the car-wreck sounding dual-guitars? And as if this catastophe couldn’t get any worse, the next song is the new version of the epic Megadeth track of them all… Hangar 18? No, how about… A Tout Le Monde!!! And this is hand’s down the most Elvis-Presley I have ever heard Dave get… and to boot, he’s got that pop-centerfold bimbo Christina Scabbia from whatever the hell that overrated Ozzfest band is that she sings for performing the most ridiculous metal duet here with Elvis Mustaine ever recorded!

Rarely have I ever… IN MY LIFE… not been able to complete listening to an album, out of sheer respect for the artist, most notably someone that I have always worshipped like Dave Mustaine but there is always a first! This is the worst heavy metal album of 2007!

Rocket