First Listen: Megadeth, Endgame

I will probably do a Dear Dave Mustaine letter on this album, but just in case I don't get to it, I wanted to go on record here: Endgame is great.

For the third time in a row, Dave Mustaine has put out his best record since Rust in Peace. I don't know where the 48-year-old Mustaine is finding this late-career energy, but he absolutely shreds on this album. This is raw, fast, powerful thrash metal, the kind I once thought we'd never hear from Megadeth again. Now it's becoming a regular thing.

Highlights? After the instrumental opening "Dialectic Chaos," the band just erupts into "This Day We Fight," an awesome old-school head-banger. There are two melodic singles, the sort-of-catchy "44 Minutes" and the half-acoustic, string-laden "The Hardest Part of Letting Go... Sealed With a Kiss." But the rest of this album is just metal, plain and simple. "Head Crusher" is fantastic, "Bodies" just rocks, and closer "The Right to Go Insane" is one of those mid-tempo melodic stompers Mustaine does so well. And the solos are blistering throughout. (And like on United Abominations, there are a lot of them.)

If you dug '80s Megadeth and haven't heard the last few albums, seriously, check this out. It's as good as you're hoping it is.