Roadrunner

Didn't seem that long ago that Metallica released a new album right? ... Oh look, now Megadeth has one. Weird when that happens.

Dialectic Chaos starts out the album. Its a blazingly intense intro track that has Dave Mustaine and new guitarist Chris Broderick soloing back and forth in a game of "can you top this?" Usually Dave hires guitar players who won't outshine him, but I must say, he really fucked up this time! Chris Broderick completely steals the show out from under Dave's nose. It may sound premature at this stage of the current line-up but Broderick may be the best guitarist Dave has ever found. This Day We Fight is the first proper song and goddamn, does it pack a powerful punch. I don't remember the last time that the band sounded this vicious, probably not since Rust In Peace.

Despite what preview songs had one believe, Endgame isn't an all out thrash album. There are also more moderate tempoed songs not unlike their mid-90's material, which is fine by me. 44 Minutes is the first of these. This is the sort of song that would had fit nicely on Youthanasia and it would had also blown away everything on that particular one had it been written then (and I absolutely love that album). 1,320 returns to the hectic speed that Megadeth is typically known for, with a series of ripping solos that'll make anyone bang their heads. Bite The Hand is another mid-paced heavy tune with a killer chorus. Bodies sounds like a lost song from the Youthanasia sessions.

Rise Above Records

To some the 1970's are long gone, and happily forgotten as an era of hippies and LSD, among other things. But to anyone who loves music the 1970's is one of the most significant decades (if not THE most significant decade) of the century for music - primarily, rock n roll. Rock n roll wasn't invented in the 70's, but the 70's is when it became adventurous, experimental, interesting, exciting, wild, and completely out-of-this-world awesome. Progressive rock combined the finest elements of various styles of music, art, literature and ideas and expanded the realm of songwriting to something never heard before, while its performers were recognized as serious and able musicians unwilling to settle for playing dumbed down rock, but unwilling to compromise the intensity of their sound. Of the countless bands that made a timeless name for themselves in the 1970's, one of the bands that stands out the most and even invented their own brand of progressive music (spacerock!) was Hawkwind. Now, this review isn't about Hawkwind, but it's about a band that, in every sense, worships Hawkwind and pays them a quality tribute in their sound.

Litmus sometimes sounds exactly like Hawkwind, down to the driving, proto-punk/pre-metal yet spaced out riffs, and the mellotron psychedelia, to the remarkably similar vocals, all taking you on a cosmic voyage with extended jams and spacey rhythms and melodies that serve to either complement or even substitute the effects of LSD on your brain. At other times, they are their own unique machine creating a sound that is in obvious homage to Hawkwind, but brave enough to do new things.