Well, I remember listening to this when it came out, at first I liked it and I still find it to be a good album, although I haven't listened to it for years until just recently. But still it in my eyes marked the demise of Megadeth, for the first time an album from them which I couldn't say was great all the way through, there are some great songs to be found here, but also some weaker songs... I think that on this particular album Megadeth first lost their spark, and not being all that familiar with their work after this album, I can say what I heard of it, they never regained that spark, they became dull and uninteresting. Time for an analogy, imagine yourself cruising along in a car and everything is just fine, like Megadeth up till Rust In Peace, but then the car runs out of fuel a few humps forward are made as the last drops are sucked in, as it is with Megadeth's Countdown to Extinction album, a few good songs but a lot of the songs just don't do anything, and afterwards you keep sitting in that car going nowhere, just sitting there and nothing is fine, like Megadeth after Countdown to Extinction. It doesn't matter what albums up till and including Rust in Peace, you will always find energetic speed/thrash well executed and with Dave Mustaine's special snarling vocals, Countdown To Extinction not only lacks the energetic feel throughout all of the album, Dave Mustaine also had the bad idea to actually try and sing rather then just snarl, bad idea. Still as albums goes one could do worse then this... and well "Symphony Of Destruction" is a great song, and the schizophrenic feel of Sweating Bullets is just plain brilliant. If you already have everything really worthwhile by Megadeth, you might want to get this as well, but if you lack some of their earlier work, they are what you should obtain!

© 1999 sharund