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Saturday, June 15, 2013

Megadeth - Supercollider - Album Review

Year: 2013

When Megadeth named their new album Supercollider, I expected the album to surpass the previous two albums by them, namely Endgame and Thir13en. This expectation was only compounded by Dave Mustaine's constant words that this was the best album that the band had ever recorded. But none of this prepared me for what Supercollider, really turned out to be. 


Megadeth have released thirteen albums so far and they are known for the consistency that they have, compared to the other bands of the Big 4. Supercollider is their 14th studio album that was released on 4th June, 2013, through Tradecraft records. To summarize this review in a few words, this is the worst Megadeth album to ever be released. 

This album fails on so many levels, that it is hard to find anything positive to say about this album. To call this a Thrash Metal album, would be to blaspheme the metal overlords. This is more of a Hard Rock album that leans close on metal. The music itself is very unimpressive. Megadeth desperately suffer from the lack of any good, memorable song on this record. The riffs are all very generic and sound very lackluster. 

There are very few tracks here, that one might want to listen more than once ('Kingmaker', 'Built For War'). The rest of the tracks are so mundane that listening to them once is punishment enough. The writing on this record is so bad, that not even Chris Broderick's guitar work can save it. 

The mixing and production does not do anything to save this album. It rather makes things worse, as the entire album sounds very muffled and leaves the listener straining his ears. Some of the sections, like the bass for example, are hardly noticeable due to this suppressed sound. The first time I listened to the album completely, I missed out David Draiman's guest appearance. I actually had to look up the liner notes to identify which song he had performed on. This should give an idea of how bad the mixing is.

Everyone knows that Dave Mustaine is no poet, but still, he had been responsible for some pretty enjoyable lyrics in the past. That aspect too, is missing from this album. Dave's recent tryst with religion, seems to have somehow made him softer. The lyrics on this album are so pathetic, that it is hard to believe that it was written by the same guy who wrote the lyrics for songs like 'Holy Wars.. Punishment Due', 'Liar', 'The System Has Failed', 'Headcrusher' etc. Dave Mustaine, on this album, seems to preaching to a gathering, as he sings about religion, teen rape, the value of friendship etc. This is definitely not the Mustaine that we know and love.

Another thing that is noticeable in this album, is that all the guitar solos, sound very similar to each other. Aside from the fact that none of them are very impressive or memorable, they all seem to start on the higher end of the fretboard and work their way down. Mustaine's age shows through in his vocal work. Though he was never the best vocalist as he was a guitarist, he used to have the passion and anger in his voice. That passion and anger seems to have vanished here. 

Supercollider is possibly the weakest and most unimpressive album that Megadeth has released in its 30 year of existence. It surpasses the album Risk, which till now had been considered their worst album. Supercollider is nowhere near super, as the title indicates.

Rating: 35%

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