After an extremely radio-friendly and musically very poor which led me to get away from the band, Megadeth is back to its roots with The World Needs a Hero! An album much heavier than Risk (1999) and Cryptic Writings (1997). I'm not talking here about a Rust in Peace II (even though one of the songs is called Return to Hangar), but an album much more guitar-oriented than the previous two which were focusing more on the vocals. Dave Mustaine is again the main songwriter, composing and writing almost all the music and lyrics on the album. One thing to note, the guitars are heavy but at the same time very groovy, which is excellent, for example in the verse and chorus of the title track. The production is very good, it's easy to distinguish each instrument. Al Pitrelli's guitar work is also quite remarkable. He's a great successor to Marty Friedman and his excellent long solo in Dread and the Fugitive Mind is proof. I also like the work of Jimmy DeGrasso on the drums and David Ellefson is again very efficient on the bass. The songs that marked me the most are The World Needs a Hero, 1000 Times Goodbye, Burning Bridges (despite the chorus with distortionned vocals à la Alice in Chains which is very annoying for the ear), Promises (very melancholic ballad), Recipe for Hate...Warhorse (without doubt the most powerful song on the album) and the excellent Dread and the Fugitive Mind. A weak point of the album, the last two songs: Return to Hangar is really not original with almost the same lyrics as Hangar 18 and When is a carbon copy of the structure of Am I Evil with the intro and outro of The Call of Ktulu. It is very easy to sing the lyrics from Am I Evil while listening to When and many riffs and drum beats are extremely similar to that song. Despite this, the album is very good, some things still need improvement but Megadeth are back on the right track and I foresee a great decade coming for the band with this new lineup. Overall, the band's best album since Youthanasia in 1994.
