Megadeth Manchester

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Megadeth plays thrash at speed and with unusual precision, stacking intricate riffs and twin-guitar harmonies where a blunter band would simply hit harder. Dave Mustaine sings in a sneering, aggressive register that sits deliberately at odds with how clean the playing underneath it is. Mustaine founded the band after his exit from Metallica, and what followed was pointedly faster and heavier than the music he had left behind. The songs take on war, political rot, religious extremism and end-of-the-world paranoia, set to rapid-fire drumming, elaborate lead lines and arrangements that keep changing direction rather than settling into a groove. The lineup around Mustaine has turned over many times across the catalogue; the technical standard demanded of it has not. That standard is the point. Megadeth belongs to the small group of bands that decided what thrash was allowed to sound like, and the songs still reward close listening rather than sheer volume.