Megadeth

"Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good!"
(Loud Records) 

You'd have to figure with a name like "Loud" records they'd be good for something sooner or later. Not to insult anyone's listening tastes but it all seems a little easier to swallow now. And here's where it all began for Mega-Dave and his band of not always so merry men. "Killing Is My Business…" in its original incarnation was a groundbreaking record at the dawn of an up and coming Thrash Metal scene of the early eighties. Megadeth rose in the ranks of the "Big 4" and even though they've looked back several times over, while we wait and we wonder and we hope, no one can deny them their roots as one of the best in the business in their day. "Business" being the operative term, theirs was to destroy any and all comers in the wake of Metallica's unprecedented success and in fact they were amongst the loudest and most devastating around-proud titleholders of the world's "State of the Art Speed Metal Band." Some seventeen years since its original Combat release, the original tapes were recovered, digitally restored-a point that should not be overlooked-and reveal and retain the original brutality meant to dent a few heads every now and again. Amidst a few well chosen greetings and an up close and personal experience with one Vic Rattlehead, there's plenty to visually absorb as the imminent aural decay occurs around you. Glorious indeed to again hear the triumph and torment in reborn classics as the bludgeoning title track; "Rattlehead," an unheralded personal favorite of mine; "Looking Down The Cross" with its creepy plodding midpoint break, still not for the faint of heart; and of course another Mustaine original from back in his Metallica days, "Mechanix" which was also "Four Horsemen" from the "Kill 'Em All" record-right, right, old news, and take your pick but here you can actually "hear" the soloing right to its untimely end; and the revelation behind the title; "These Boots," an ongoing saga unto itself for a shitty song, reborn again of conflict, included here in yet another "revised" version where select foul language gets the "boot" for this originally conspired "joke" song gone cult classic. Three early demo tracks round out, drown out, and basically blow out a modernized marvel of a record in true nerve grating grandeur. At least until Mustaine and his cohorts get their finger back on the trigger and let it fly again, true headbangers can rejoice in reliving a piece of holistic Heavy Metal history!

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