This week’s Metal Mondays looks at Megadeth, read last week’s introduction and look at Slayer’s Raining Blood here.
Megadeth – Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good
Firstly, Megadeth is a name that goes beyond ridiculousness into being kind of awesome. Mega and Death, what’s harder than that? Also, death is spelled wrong because true metalheads don’t respect basic spelling rules.
Their frontman, Dave Mustaine, was formerly in Metallica, but was sacked. He then vowed revenge by forming an even heavier band. Starting a band out of vengeance – awesome.
The song title is back to standard metal dorkiness though. Are they implying that they’re hitmen enjoying a particularly lucrative spell? Nah, you’re 4 dweebs with perms. Now, if I’m mistaken and they were in fact contract killers, then I have to applaud their bold approach to avoiding law enforcement.
The song starts off with a few seconds of feedback, before a couple of big thrashes of guitar and drums. When the riffs kick in it’s fairly heavy but actually quite funky – I could get into this. The vocal kicks in at about 30 seconds and it’s a high-pitched shriek, kind of akin to Axl Rose. I mean, it’s not good, but it’s better than the growling stuff.
The lyrics are from the perspective of a hitman. It’s the kind of thing that might be cool in a different context, but it’s all just a bit too obvious to be interesting. And when it climaxes with the song title being repeated for about 30 seconds, it’s too stupid not to take me out of it.
Two weeks in on my metal journey, and I’m kind of in the same mindset. Musically it undeniably goes hard and I can appreciate that. But the vocals/lyrics are just a killer. It’s just too much. It doesn’t feel like there’s any subtlety, any sense of humour, or any real emotion. It’s like if you made The Evil Dead, but done it completely straight-faced. Plus, I read the Dave Mustaine’s wiki and he sounds like a clown.
Rating:
No Frills Reviews 
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