3 Megadeth
Rust In Peace (1990)
For Dave Mustaine, the road
to Rust In Peace was a rocky
one. With his addictions to
smack, cocaine and booze
causing him his own
problems, the band were
forced to scrap much of their 1988 touring
plans owing to bassist and narcotic running-
mate David Ellefson’s own sickness. Before
this, during a show in Northern Ireland,
having heard bootleg shirts were being sold
for ‘The Cause’, he inadvertently dedicated a
cover of Sex Pistols’ Anarchy In The UK
to the IRA, resulting in a riot and the band
having to leave in an armoured bus. On
top of that, a new line-up was called for.
But from this tumult grew Megadeth’s
most successful and creative period, and
a classic line-up was pulled together, with
the addition of guitar whiz Marty Friedman
and drummer Nick Menza. The Northern
Irish incident, meanwhile, resulted in Rust
In Peace’s opening rager Holy Wars... The
Punishment Due, while on Tornado Of Souls
and Hangar 18, the riffs seemed intent on
breaking lesser bands’ fingers.
The album became Megadeth’s biggest
to date. And while they would go on to sell
more, they never again touched its red-hot
technicality, vicious delivery, or the sense of
a band making a record as a by-product of
simply trying to hold it together. Masterful.2 Metallica
Ride The Lightning (1984)
■ “’Thrash’ implies a lack
of arrangement, ability,
songwriting, or any form
of intelligence,” said Lars
Ulrich to Kerrang! when
discussing his band’s
then-unheard second album in 1984.
“There’s far more to us than thrashing.”
On Ride The Lightning, Metallica did
indeed show the high regard in which they
held arrangement, ability, songwritingand intelligence. But rather than separate
themselves from the scene that had birthed
them, they expanded its boundaries to
accommodate a much broader horizon.
It was, and remains, a true masterwork
from a band with no shortage of creative
fecundity, refusing to be hamstrung by
anyone else’s vision.
Upon its release, it was clear the
goalposts had shifted. Not only that, it set
a precedent for Metallica remaining, not
one step ahead, but on a different route
entirely from their peers. It announced
that Metallica were different, as well as
throwing down the gauntlet to everyone
else to pull their socks up.50 KERRANG!
Slayer’s wedding photos were
going to come out less suave
James Hetfield realised than they wanted
he’d left his wallet at
home againDave Mustaine thrashed his
shirt right off his own back