Review by Saxy S for Megadeth - The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead! (2022)

Dave Mustaine is one of the most overrated artists/composers in all of heavy metal. 

There. I said it. And god does it feel good! This is a man who was so salty about getting kicked out of Metallica that he went and started an anti-Metallica band whose 1980s albums lacked artistic focus and direction that Metallica were able to reproduce in spades throughout their golden run. And yet, Megadeth almost always gets a free pass while a bunch of revisionists will say "Metallica was always bad". Megadeth helped develop the environment in thrash metal where bands don't need to evolve or grow, and can reproduce Rust In Peace ad nauseum for their entire careers and elitists will eat that shit up.

Like Metallica, the 1990s saw Megadeth commercialize to mix results. Unlike Metallica, when their attempts at commercialization alienated longtime fans (or just failing miserably with Risk), they reverted back to an old sound as evidence that Mustaine and company didn't actually care about the music they were making. They basically paved the way for Slayer in the later portion of the 2000s and my complicated relationship with them.

And so, it should be no surprise that The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead! is exactly what you should expect. It's just more Megadeth; you've heard these riffs before possibly hundreds of times. The callbacks to Rust In Peace, Countdown to Extinction and Peace Sells... But Whose Buying? are blatant and have been done to death by Megadeth over the last five records and leaves me with nothing to say. The last Megadeth album that was worth giving a damn about was United Abominations for making a hybrid of the classic 1980s sound with influence from the bands best album, Youthanasia. If you enjoyed Dystopia, well you're in luck because this record is the exact same thing. 

Best Songs: Sacrifice, Soldier On!