{"id":2559,"date":"2007-06-21T01:04:20","date_gmt":"2007-06-21T06:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.themetalden.com\/?p=2559"},"modified":"2009-05-31T08:52:49","modified_gmt":"2009-05-31T13:52:49","slug":"rocket-review-megadeth-united-abominations-cd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/?p=2559","title":{"rendered":"ROCKET REVIEW: MEGADETH &#8211; &#8220;United Abominations&#8221; (CD)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 213px; height: 209px;\" title=\"g\" src=\"http:\/\/i189.photobucket.com\/albums\/z89\/themetalden2007\/u-1.jpg\" alt=\"g\" width=\"213\" height=\"209\" \/><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Released by Roadrunner records May 15th, 2007 United Abominations is Dave Mustaine&#8217;s eleventh swing at Metallica&#8217;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\u00a0the debut studio\u00a0recording\u00a0with new Megadeth members:  brothers Drover (Glen &amp; Shawn) including former Black Label Society bassist  James Lomenzo. The first track &#8216;Sleepwalker&#8217; starts off with a sappy synth-intro  like something Ozzy is known for doing lately and then quickly erupts into a  &#8216;not quite A-game Dave-chugger riff&#8217; with the blow-hard, posturing lyrics: &#8220;I  should be calling collect from jail for the things I commit each night in my  head,&#8221; 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&#8217;s  greatest lineup with Menza, Ellefson and Friedman from the good ole Countdown To  Extinction days, but it&#8217;s actually better than anything Megadeth has put out  since 1999&#8217;s debacle &#8216;radio-friendly-bitch&#8217; Risk, which doesn&#8217;t say much  entirely because The White Stripes have been heavier than Megadeth in the past\u00a08  years&#8230; and guess what? They are an alt-rock blues act&#8230; with only two people  in the band&#8230; no bass player&#8230; and a drummer for a chick! Trust me on this one  too, I saw that &#8220;Jack-Me-Off&#8221; White live&#8230; 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.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t get me entirely wrong, the second track &#8216;Washington Is Next&#8217; is a wee  bit more in line with some of the more respectable fret work from the past that  we&#8217;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&#8230; like Dave&#8217;s busted up hand never really fully ever  repaired, along with his Heroin&#8217;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&#8217;s title track &#8216;United  Abominations&#8217; is a perfect example. This song is so much of the same that I  actually thought that I must&#8217;ve\u00a0mistakingly started playing the prior song  again. And I don&#8217;t know about all of you but I am so sick and tired of the  intermittant &#8216;voice-over&#8217; narratives, intended to intimidate or make one bite  their nails off in fright, that always appear throughout Megadeth songs&#8230; and  just plain elementary school lyrics like &#8220;Another mushroom cloud, another  smoking gun, The threat is real, the Locust King has come.&#8221; 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?<\/p>\n<p>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 &#8216;Gears Of War&#8217; is actually one of the best things I&#8217;ve  heard Dave write since &#8216;Trust&#8217;. But here we go again with the next sheepish,  moronic slug of\u00a0a metal tune when quite possibly the most &#8221;trite&#8217; metal song I  have ever heard &#8216;Blessed be The Dead&#8217;, and the following lyrics: &#8220;A great sign  appeared, Under the stars and the moon, Sounds of galloping horses On clouds of  lightning and thunder.&#8221; And the guitar solo in this &#8216;thing&#8217; is so contrived and  &#8216;screechy&#8217; and &#8216;tinny&#8217; sounding it reverts one back to the days of the fat  pimply &#8216;strange kid&#8217; 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: &#8220;How much more can I take, this  pile of crap is giving me a toothache!&#8221; The next thing that strikes me nearly  comatose on\u00a0track seven&#8217;s &#8216;Play For Blood&#8217; is that Dave&#8217;s vocals are way too  loud in the mix! I have a hard enough time taking his aging &#8220;Mr. Furly went  metal&#8221; nasal whine. Do you really have to turn it up over the car-wreck sounding  dual-guitars? And as if this catastophe couldn&#8217;t get any worse, the next song is  the new version of the epic Megadeth track of them all&#8230; Hangar 18? No, how  about&#8230; A Tout Le Monde!!!\u00a0And this is hand&#8217;s down the most Elvis-Presley I  have ever heard Dave get&#8230; and to boot, he&#8217;s got that\u00a0pop-centerfold bimbo  Christina Scabbia from whatever the hell that\u00a0overrated Ozzfest band is that she  sings for performing\u00a0the most ridiculous metal duet here with Elvis Mustaine  ever recorded!<\/p>\n<p>Rarely have I ever&#8230; IN MY LIFE&#8230; 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!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Rocket\" src=\"http:\/\/i66.photobucket.com\/albums\/h259\/rsid999\/ROCKETCORE66.jpg\" alt=\"Rocket\" width=\"250\" height=\"240\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Read Rocket&#8217;s acclaimed &#8217;07 Interview With <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ex-Megadeth\u00a0bassist David Ellefson <a href=\"http:\/\/www.roadrunnerrecords.com\/blabbermouth.net\/news.aspx?mode=Article&amp;newsitemID=82887\">HERE. <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>(as featured on Blabbermouth.Net)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Released by Roadrunner records May 15th, 2007 United Abominations is Dave Mustaine&#8217;s eleventh swing at&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17,26,19],"class_list":["post-2559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-metal-reviews","tag-heavy-metal","tag-metal-news","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themetalden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}