Review: Megadeth – S/T

January 29, 2026

Despite being a celebration of Deth, Dave Mustaine’s “Final Note” hits sour.

I’m a sucker for a conclusion, especially in terms of bands and/or artists coming to an end. For one reason or another, most acts don’t have the privilege to end their careers on a purposeful finale—which makes it all the more special when a legacy project is able to end in a thematically purposeful way. From the cryptic farewell of David Bowie‘s Blackstar to the sorrowful swansong of Leonard Cohen‘s You Want It Darker to the blisteringly desolate Dissociation from The Dillinger Escape Plan, it’s a seemingly surefire way to wrap up a legacy and bring a sense of closure, bittersweet and/or depressing as it may be, to one’s adoring masses. So, when Megadeth announced they’d be closing the curtains on their 43 year-long career with one final album, you’d imagine the reception would be somewhere close to a rapturous clamor… right?

Well, in case you’ve been living under a rock or (more likely) haven’t given a shit about Megadeth since Countdown to Extinction, it’s important to note that the post-Rust In Peace years have been rocky at best. Whereas reception to records like Countdown and Youthanasia is mixed-to-positive depending on who you ask, their excursions out of the thrash formula proved to be a lot less successful than their conjoined twin Metallica‘s. However, much like Metallica, they never seemed to find their footing quality-wise after these direction changes.

Even still, both bands continued to maintain unfathomable levels of popularity as two of the “Big Four” American thrash metal bands. Megadeth were quicker to return to thrash metal in general than ‘Tallicer, returning from career low points Cryptic Writings and Risk, the latter seeming more like a legacy-metal-act-humiliation-ritual rather than a competent selection of tracks. I’d hardly say records like Endgame, The System Has Failed, Th1rt3en, or the return to butt-metal slop titled Super Collider did much to capture imaginations like Rust In Peace and Peace Sells… were able to. This is normal for a late-career thrash band, sure (god knows Anthrax and Slayer also have their fair share of dogwater output), even if Megadeth managed to put out a lot more material than their counterparts. Frankly, they could have sold whale sound CDs in the 2000s—their place in the halls of metal royalty was staked.

So, a legendary band past their prime announces a final album; mainstream metal publications promote it as a big event and share promotional material. Where does this find Dave and company? Well, when singles in late 2025 have titles like “Let There Be Shred” and “I Don’t Care” and are adorned with art depicting the iconic Vic Rattlehead character flipping off the camera like a badass(?) bootleg shirt of an epic, rebellious skeleton, let’s just say the circles I run in lacked the previously mentioned acclaim. As for the content of these singles, their polished production and a modern-thrash veneer hides the same arrested development that nearly every one of these classic metal bands carries with them into the studio post-9/11. “I Don’t Care” is a smug and juvenile retread of the righteous(?) indignation of Peace Sells…’s title track, containing lyrics almost as obnoxious as the gussied up snarl of Mustaine’s aged sing-talking. “Let There Be Shred” is a much more tolerable thematically, if not still frivolous and corny. It’s musically flashy and certainly more gratifying than “I Don’t Care,” but probably just as memorable as the middling 2000s return-to-thrash material it’s most evocative of.

As for the resulting self-titled album, the nicest thing I can say about the end result is that, by hearkening back to various eras of the Megadeth back catalog, Dave is able to explore his own history in metal and make an album that feels like a true conclusion to the tale of the band. Where other listeners and critics have noted these returning influences and references as a form of artistic self-cannibalism, I read it as a purposeful choice that is admittedly successful. Regardless of the actual content of the songs, something about Megadeth is genuinely nostalgic to someone who grew up loving many of this band’s albums (its me, I’m bitches).

But, as you may be well aware, this is an album and not a museum exhibition. The true measure of this record’s success was going to come down to how successful these self-sucking homages were on their own. Much of the record walks the line between heft and melody, but regularly fails to succeed in either field. Dave’s gravelly, aged voice ends up sounding weak and subdued often, backed up by a band that fails to lend anything interesting or dynamic to the majority of moments on this album. New to this band is guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari, also of Wintersun post-2004, and his clear talents on guitar are squandered on lackluster material and with a band that otherwise sounds like they couldn’t give less of a shit. Drummer Dirk Verbeuren (of Cadaver in their anti-woke period, lmao) and bassist James LoMenzo (previously worked with Black Label Society and Zakk Wylde in general) both have history in metal that they should have been able to bring to the table here, yet their contributions feel superfluous.

Then again, I hardly think I would be stoked about material like “Made to Kill” or “Another Bad Day.” Thematically, songs either revolve around how badass Dave Mustaine is or retreading the same vague political dissident messaging that, at this point, reads as the backwash of the backwash of Rust in Peace. At the same time, I’ll gladly take empty anti-war and anti-government messaging in 2026 over the pseudo-intellectual InfoWars garbage of Endgame and Dystopia. The writing of the actual songs doesn’t fair much better, as the retreads I previously defended often go nowhere and feel like ideas born of laziness, even if I still believe it’s an artistic choice. What you end up with is an album that sounds like how a communion wafer tastes, wrapped up in an ultra-sterile production job that feels straight out of the 2010s boomer band revivals.

As for positives? I suppose “Tipping Point” is the most interesting song from a structural perspective and the previously mentioned “Let There Be Shred,” as wince-worthy as it is, is as close as Dave and company get to the flashy fun and pizzazz I imagine they were aiming for. Album closer “The Last Note,” too, stands out as a sort-of-highlight, serving as a true moment of finality for the band’s ultimate conclusion. If anything, the track’s themes of growing weary and deciding to end one’s career with a final note are ideas that should have been explored throughout the album, serving both as scene dressing for a clearly aged and tired Mustaine and giving the listener insight into the emotional turmoil of laying such a massive metal institution to rest. It’s easily the record’s strongest moment and contains some gratifying acoustic guitar work and a fun spoken word conclusion from the big man himself.

But, what truly sends this record off is a hilariously flat rendition of one of the last Metallica songs Dave helped write, “Ride The Lightning.” The production here is extra thin and brittle, with renditions that lack any of the hunger that makes the original so great and contain what is hands down Dave’s worst vocal performance on an album where he already sort of sounds like shit. It’s a much worse, much funnier conclusion to Megadeth’s career than “The Last Note.” The harsher critic in me would say this is a fitting ending to a band that’s always been seen as second fiddle to Metallica, still stumbling in their shadow to the very end.

That bonus track aside, it’s hard to see Megadeth as anything more than a mediocre ride down memory lane, ending a stretch of garbage music over the past 25+ years. Much like the band itself, this self-titled album is really only in the conversation (and arguably existence in general) due to the work of a band that hasn’t existed since the mid-’90s. Even still, I have a fucking heart. It’s of course still a big moment that one of extreme metal’s biggest names is purposefully throwing the towel in and attempting to end their career on their own terms and I’d be lying if I said this conclusion didn’t make me feel anything. It’s just that the positivity I feel towards Dave in this moment exists in spite of this record.

Safe travels, Dave, even if this album sucks a big one. By the way, fuck you for using AI animations to promote the record, you dork. Looks like crap.