{"id":11276,"date":"1999-08-30T00:00:47","date_gmt":"1999-08-30T00:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=11276"},"modified":"2013-06-01T15:05:28","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T15:05:28","slug":"album-review-megadeth-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-megadeth-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"MEGADETH – Risk (1999) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

MEGADETH
Risk<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nCapitol (1999)<\/span>
Rating: 6\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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With Nick Menza out of the band, Megadeth<\/a> mainman Dave Mustaine recruits drum stalwart Jimmy DeGrasso (Alice Cooper, Y&T, Dave Lee Roth) for this rollercoaster of a record that has been met by mixed reviews.<\/p>\n

Rumour has it that the opus is titled Risk<\/em> simply due to Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich\u2019s claim that Mustaine needs to take more risks with his albums. Personally, if this is true, then I don\u2019t see how Mr. Ulrich is one to comment considering the \u201cexperimental\u201d failings of his own band, but it seems as if Mustaine has taken note, with Risk<\/em> being Megadeth\u2019s most experimental, yet ineffective album to date.<\/p>\n

Opening with the stirring, violin-laced \u2018Insomnia\u2019, Megadeth adopt a harder edge to proceedings this time round, but the riffs are still groove-based, accessible even, as the band seemingly tempt to wander the same murky path as rivals Metallica. The woeful cover artwork and the slight change of logo suggests a band, which, like Slayer<\/a>, has lost themselves after the nu-metal invasion.<\/p>\n

To an extent it\u2019s still very much Megadeth for the 90s, albeit one so polished and bereft of thrash, only occasionally rising to power metal notions with the juddering riffs of \u2018Prince Of Darkness\u2019. But with \u2018Enter The Arena\u2019 and the terrible \u2018Crush \u2018Em\u2019 the band now seem more suited to writing songs for wrestling entertainment. The less said about these two abysmal forays into modern rock the better.<\/p>\n

While \u2018Breadline\u2019 is about as melodic and commercial as Megadeth get, some critics have argued that if this opus had been put out under any other moniker then it would have sold by the bucket load… but I disagree. A track like \u2018The Doctor Is Calling\u2019 is more suited to Alice Cooper, and despite its clattering drum and wistful guitars I\u2019m craving something more cutting edge. Suddenly, Megadeth sound rather stale alongside the likes of Machine Head and Fear Factory.<\/p>\n

Strangely, it is Megadeth at their more subtle which seems to work here. \u2018I\u2019ll Be There\u2019 and \u2018Wanderlust\u2019 are probably two of the band\u2019s most underrated songs, but they are still nothing more than rather formulaic rock tracks, which seem in keeping with the \u201cthrashless\u201d career path of Metallica. The same could also be said for the subtle steps of \u2018Ecstasy\u2019 and the two \u2018Time\u2019 tracks (\u2018Time: The Beginning\u2019 and \u2018Time: The End\u2019) which close the album.<\/p>\n

I find myself having to harp on about how poor the mid-to-late 90s are for metal, especially with some of the genre\u2019s hardest bands watering down their sound to seemingly carve out a career. I\u2019m guessing that\u2019s what\u2019s happened with Megadeth, because Risk<\/em> leaves me unfulfilled, and gasping for those hazy days of crunching thrash which Dave Mustaine and company became masters of. Sadly, thrash metal isn\u2019t fashionable in 1999, and my interest in Risk<\/em> fades as rapidly as the decade.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MEGADETHRisk Capitol (1999)Rating: 6\/10 With Nick Menza out of the band, Megadeth mainman Dave Mustaine recruits drum stalwart Jimmy DeGrasso (Alice Cooper, Y&T, Dave Lee Roth) for this rollercoaster of a record that has been met by mixed reviews. Rumour has it that the opus is titled Risk simply due to Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-megadeth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11276"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12135,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11276\/revisions\/12135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}