Rust In Peace. A razor sharp album with a ‘rusty’ feel to it all. The riffs sound furious and a lot of the solos are well thought out and written. A brilliant album that shares some of the traits of its predecessor: Peace Sells But Who’s Buying. Such as the intros to most of its songs. They sound good, but the intros all start sounding very similar after listening to both albums. Which was one of this album’s very few flaws; a lack of variations in its intros.

The lyrics often refer to nuclear warfare, the end of the world, and other grim, yet applicable subjects. Mustaine maintained the high standard of vocals - in more ways than one. The album, being released in 1990 had a conflictual attitude towards the themes at the time. As if it’s trying to grab the listener and tell them to “wake the fuck up.”

The sound of the album changed in a similar way that Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All changed from sharp and ‘thrashy’ to thick and dark when they released Ride The Lightning. The only difference being Peace Sells But Who’s Buying was less ‘sharp’ to begin with. Rust In Peace has a very prominent bass guitar and drum backing, giving many of the songs substance.

In conclusion, Rust In Peace was a great album and is Megadeth’s best album in my opinion. Mustaine didn’t change the formula that worked, he only built on top of it.

If you’re someone who knows anything about any genre of music that involves the use of the guitar, you’ve probably heard of Metallica. Which means you’ve probably heard of the album “Kill ‘Em All” - Metallica’s debut album released in 1983. Feel old? You should. The album was great. It had a vicious attitude that opposed the whole ‘Glam Metal’ scene at the time. With singles like “Whiplash” and “Jump in the Fire”, Metallica was grabbing the world of music by the balls with an icy grip. However, there were two problems:

First Problem: Ron McGovney. A keen bassist with a short history of musical careers. McGovney wasn’t a very notable character in Metallica’s timeline. Kicked from the band on Decemeber 10th, 1982, McGovney wasn’t in the band for a long time and didn’t really contribute as much as other members. He felt that he wasn’t a ‘respected’ member of the band. However the man did regret leaving the band when he did. After his leave, McGovney decided enough was enough and sold most of his musical equipment. This is where Cliff Burton, Metallica’s second bassist joins the band.

Second problem: Dave Mustaine.  The man possessed the instrumental skills of a god. He could write songs for and play the guitar very well. That’s where a lot of Kill ‘Em All’s riffs are from. It’s not exactly recent news. Any Metallica fan knows that Mustaine wrote a lot of the music on the first album. So what’s my point? Well,  my point is: Mustaine had influenced the band greatly, offering a lot of good.. and bad things. I’ve explained the good, let’s discuss the bad. Mustaine was a big fan of booze, parties and any drug he could get his hands on. He would often become very violent and crazed when drunk or high. “Dave wasn’t a nice drunk.”

April 11th, 1983, Dave was kicked out of the band. Obviously, he was emotionally crippled by this gesture, and held resentment towards Metallica for decades. Only recently has he let go of the grudge. James and Lars were a lead guitarist down. They needed a new man. That’s when they gold hold of Kirk Hammett. A skilled guitarist who showed great promise. Even today he rolls with the band, thrashing gigs in any possible country.

During the time of Kill ‘Em All an usually high amount of members left and joined the band. However, despite this controversy, the album remains a thrash metal classic and is enjoyed by millions even today. Shit, even I listen to it every now and again. If you’ve not listened to the album, I strongly recommend you find a spare hour and listen to it on YouTube or something. Even if you’re not a keen fan of metal music.

Megadeth’s “Peace Sells But Who’s Buying” is a short yet sweet album. It includes thick, punchy riffs and ferocious vocals in every song. Some introductions are straight to the point, some build it up - such as “The Conjuring” and “Good Mourning/Black Friday”. This very worthy album was released on 19th September 1986. It is among the many albums released from Megadeth. Peace Sells is among my favourites. Rust in Peace being at the top. But we’ll talk about that later.

Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine used his newly ready for battle skills with the guitar to an even further extent than his days in Metallica. He also does vocals. Who would’ve thought Dave would have such a “I don’t give a shit” voice? His lyrics are catchy and straight to the point. Mustaine was really starting to climb the musical ladder when this album was released. As short as it was, he knew it’d be more popular than some shitty ‘Glam Metal’ album that was four hours long and all had similar sounding songs.

See, Megadeth and Metallica may have seemed like ‘opposing’ bands, but they were, in a way, fighting for a cause. To kill the wave of Glam Metal and replace it with reality. It was hard for Dave Mustaine to pretend to get along with Metallica. In most cases, when media was involved, Dave would voice his opinions obliviously.

Overall, Peace Sells But Who’s Buying is an album definitely worth listening to. It creates the picture of the music scene of the time. It does this by almost contrasting what the other genres of music were at the time. Instead of ‘love’, most thrash metal songs were about ‘hate’ and the reality of the world.