Author: Rok Klemše
Artist: Megadeth
Label: Capitol Records
Released: 2008
Running time: 2:33:58
Rating: 4/5
Megadeth. Just the name inspires awe in every thrash metal fan, and honestly in anyone who loves good metal. The story of the band’s founder and leader Dave Mustaine is well known, but a release like Anthology: Set the World Afire deserves a quick recap. Mustaine formed Megadeth in 1983 after getting booted from Metallica over alcoholism, heavy drug abuse and violent behavior. In that sense Megadeth is a band born out of revenge, and Mustaine himself put it like this: “I wanted blood. Theirs. I wanted to be faster and heavier than them.” And since revenge is a dish best served cold, even the first record, Killing is My Business… and Business is Good, was a cold shower for Metallica, even if it never matched the success of Metallica’s releases. Mustaine’s whole career has been one big rivalry with Metallica from the very start, a race over who’s first and who’s biggest, and even though Megadeth will probably never reach the stature of (old) Metallica, commercially they’re still one of the most successful metal bands out there, with over 20 million records sold, six consecutive platinum albums and seven Grammy nominations, and they’re a fan and critic favorite too. Over a career spanning almost a quarter of a century, Megadeth have racked up 11 studio albums and now their fourth compilation in a row, which is probably the first real cross-section of this thrash giant’s career. What Capitol Punishment: The Megadeth Years and Greatest Hits: Back to the Start, which both fell well short of being the definitive Megadeth compilation, didn’t manage was made up for by the Warchest boxset, but that one is a release for the connoisseurs, which makes Anthology: Set the World Afire the first real release besides Warchest that covers almost all of Megadeth.
The first small minus is that it once again covers only the years Megadeth spent at Capitol, so the two discs with 35 tracks only go up to (and including) the album Risk, and once again you won’t hear hits like Moto Psycho, Die Dead Enough or Return to Hangar. The biggest criticism, though, is that Anthology offers only two previously unreleased tracks, and one of them has already been released in a country outside the US. That makes Anthology a compilation that’s of no use whatsoever to a true fan who already owns all of the band’s albums, so the collection is really only for obsessive collectors and ‘Deth newcomers who may not yet know the band’s earlier work. And that’s exactly where Anthology lives up to its name, since it lines up the tracks in chronological order, from the debut Killing is My Business… and Business is Good to the controversial album Risk. Fittingly, Anthology kicks off with Mechanix, which Dave wrote back in his Metallica years. It’s well known that Metallica allegedly used the song on their debut Kill ‘Em All, with changed lyrics and under the title The Four Horsemen, despite his pleas. On the Megadeth debut Mechanix finally came to life in its true form, with the original lyrics full of sexual innuendo and at a much faster tempo than Metallica’s Four Horsemen. Peace Sells takes us to the second album Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying, which is still considered one of the most successful thrash metal albums ever, and which put Megadeth firmly on the thrash map. The title track remains one of the band’s best-known songs to this day, and its opening bass line was even used as the intro to MTV News. Peace Sells deals with a theme that comes up often in Megadeth, namely armed conflict and the Cold War, with Mustaine adding his own disapproval of the negative stereotypes about metalheads. Wake Up Dead from the same album was the band’s very first single, it’s still a live favorite, and it’s about Mustaine’s fear of revenge from an ex-girlfriend. The cover of the legendary Sex Pistols punk anthem Anarchy in the UK takes us to the album So Far, So Good… So What!, with Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones guesting on the track, and Mustaine reworking the lyrics into Anarchy in the USA. In My Darkest Hour is another classic, which Mustaine wrote after learning about the death of Metallica bassist Cliff Burton. When he heard the news, Mustaine reportedly burst into tears, grabbed an acoustic guitar and wrote the song in one go, and to this day it’s the only song he’s ever written that way. Even though the music was inspired by Burton’s tragic death, the lyrics are about Mustaine’s battle with drug addiction. Holy Wars… the Punishment Due brings us to the album Rust in Peace, which still stands as one of the best and most influential thrash metal albums, and which launched a good number of Megadeth classics that remain a big part of their live set. One of them is the aforementioned Holy Wars…, which is about the Northern Ireland conflict, and another is Hangar 18, which touches on the sci-fi theme of UFOs. Hangar 18 was supposedly the military base where the wreckage of the craft that crashed at Roswell in 1947 was taken. Go to Hell is the first minor rarity, written by Megadeth for the film Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, with Keanu Reeves as a metalhead slacker in the lead role, and the previously unreleased demo of High Speed Dirt from the album Countdown to Extinction closes out the first disc. With Skin O’ My Teeth we stay on Megadeth’s best-selling record to date, and the song, an autobiographical lyric by Dave Mustaine about a failed suicide attempt, is considered one of the band’s fastest. The blistering Train of Consequences from Youthanasie, at the tempo of a raging steam locomotive, is about the destructiveness of gambling, while the hit ballad A Tout Le Monde (“to the whole world”) is about the last moments of life and saying goodbye to this world. The song was misinterpreted as a song about suicide, and in 2006 the Dawson College shooter in Montreal mentioned it on his blog, and Megadeth came under heavy attack from the purists. With Trust we move on to the album Cryptic Writing, which to this day remains the last one to go platinum, and the single for the song is still the band’s most successful single. With Insomnia we sail on to the album Risk, which is considered the band’s most criticized album, as it marked a shift from the band’s speed/thrash roots into experimental waters. Dread and the Fugitive Mind brushes past the Capitol Punishment compilation it was recorded for, and Anthology closes in grand style with two tracks: a live recording of the swan song Symphony of Destruction, recorded in San Francisco in 1992 and previously unreleased in the US, and Peace Sells from the same show.
Anthology: Set the World Afire won’t offer an old Megadeth fan anything new at all, but for younger fans who want to get to know some classic metal from one of the biggest names in thrash, I couldn’t recommend a better starting point.
Line-up
Dave Mustaine (vocals, guitar on all tracks)
Marty Friedman (guitar 10-17 on CD1, 1-13, 17, 18 on CD2)
Chris Poland (guitar, 1-5 on CD1)
Al Pitrelli (guitar, 14, 15 on CD2)
Jeff Young (guitar, 6-9 on CD1)
David Ellefson (bass on all tracks)
Nick Menza (drums 10-17 on CD1, 1-11, 17,18 on CD2)
Gar Samuelson (drums, 1-5 on CD1)
Jimmy Degrasso (drums 12-15 on CD2)
Chuck Behler (drums on 6-9 on CD1)
Production
Mike Ragogna and Kevin Flaherty
Tracklist
CD 1
1.Mechanix
2.Rattlehead
3.Peace Sells
4.Wake Up Dead
5.Devils Island
6.Anarchy in the U.K.
7.Set the World Afire
8.Into the Lungs of Hell
9.In My Darkest Hour
10.Holy Wars … The Punishment Due
11.Tornado of Souls
12.Hangar 18
13.Take No Prisoners
14.Go To Hell
15.Sweating Bullets
16.Crown of Worms
17.High Speed Dirt (Demo)
CD 2
1.Skin O’ My Teeth
2.Ashes In Your Mouth
3.Breakpoint
4.Angry Again
5.Train of Consequences
6.Reckoning Day
7.A Tout Le Monde
8.The Killing Road
9.New World Order
10.Trust
11.She-Wolf
12.Insomnia
13.Prince of Darkness
14.Kill the King
15.Dread and the Fugitive Mind
16.Foreclosure of a Dream
17.Symphony of Destruction (Live)
18.Peace Sells (Live)
