Megadeth - Endgame

Rating: * * * *


Verdict: Back on track by returning to the glory days

Returns to form in heavy metal are as common as, well, wailing heavy metal guitar solos. Megadeth, the band guitarist Dave Mustaine formed after getting kicked out of Metallica for being a boozer and behaving badly, have already had a return to form this decade on 2004's The System Has Failed.

That album was the first release after Mustaine laid the band to rest for a few years while he recovered from an arm injury. However, Endgame is perhaps the true return of Megadeth - one of the big four thrash metal acts alongside Slayer, Metallica and Anthrax - as it harks back to the frantic onslaught and no-holds-barred attack of the genre's 80s heyday.

While it doesn't quite have the youthful vigour and unbridled power of second album, Peace Sells ... But Who's Buying? from 1986, Endgame is frantic, pummelling and heavy, with very little let up.

The only slight reprieve is the romantic progressive rock excursion on two-part song The Hardest Part of Letting Go ... Sealed With A Kiss, but even then the soaring guitar solo by new comer Chris Broderick is a scorcher. But for those who like it more straight-up, with no mucking around, the rampant This Day We Fight, drag strip anthem 1,320, and the self-explanatory Head Crusher, will give your eardrums a good thrashing.

The only slight stumble is 44 Minutes, with Mustaine's storytelling coming across a little clumsy. But hey, he's a guitarist, not Shakespeare.

Scott Kara