So Far, So Good... So What! | One Step Forward, One Step Back

Introduction

To talk about this album is a little different from basically every other classic Megadeth album. The two albums surrounding it are legendary. KIMB was the debut. Countdown, Youth, and Cryptic all have different reasons for being particularly relevant. SFSGSW is different in that it's kind of not. If you heard PSBWB, you've basically heard what SFSGSW has to offer. It's more thrash goodness, but there's simply something about SFSGSW that made it, to many people, a somewhat forgettable album. I've never agreed with that sentiment, but I'm hoping in this review to analyze what leads to that conclusion. So let's get started.

Analysis

One thing that is different from PSBWB is there is definitely less of a jazzy feel to it. This comes from the departure of Gar Samuelson and Chris Poland, replaced by Chuck Behler and Jeff Young. And Behler is not Gar. The drums feel a bit more sterile than the first two albums, yet don't up the ante in technicality like Nick would do. They're not bad at all, just not quite as memorable as the drums on the first two albums. Luckily Ellefson is still awesome on the bass guitar, providing some of his best basslines yet. Specifically on Set The World Afire.

The riffs once again take the cake for the best aspect of the album just like PSBWB. In fact they actually feel more aggressive than most of the riffs on the first two albums as a whole, cutting out a lot more of the mid-tempo grooves (e.g. "Chosen Ones" and "Wake Up Dead") and going for more straight-forward thrashiness. But unlike the drums, the loss of jazziness is balanced out by the increase in technicality here. The seeds of Rust are planted in many tracks here, showing crazy tempo-changes and extravagant solos. Jeff Young may not be Marty Friedman but he was definitely a step in that direction, giving the album more leads and melodies than prior albums. The vocals... well it's Dave's vocals. Though I would argue he is straining his voice a bit more here than on PSBWB, he's trying harder and thus ends up missing some points. While a vocal performance like "In My Darkest Hour" is fantastic and stands as probably Dave's best vocal performance pre-1990, his vocal performances elsewhere can be a bit grating. More hit-and-miss than the last two if you ask me.

Track by Track

Luckily where this album succeeds is in the songs themselves. This is still top tier classic Megadeth.
The album opens with an instrumental, "Into The Lungs of Hell". Beginning with guitars and backing arrangements before going into full shred material it signifies that this is going to be a more technical, proggy album than the last two. "Set The World Afire" adds to this. For apparently being one of the earliest written songs it shows a musical maturity and level of sophistication not yet seen by Megadeth, as well as some truly great lyrics. It also has easily the strongest main riffing on the album. After that we hit the cover of this album, "Anarchy In The U.K.". And man is this the best cover yet, for as little as that says. It's just a great track on the album and works as a nice contrast to the more technical style of the rest of the album.

"Mary Jane" follows and is a pretty good song, although one that feels like a diet version of a later song and lacks some of the better aspects of the album. Dave's performance here also doesn't particularly grip me. "502" is a more straightforward Thrash song. Fast paced gallop riff. Musically it has a lot in common with "The Conjuring". It's good but IMO the least memorable of the original tracks. Then is "In My Darkest Hour". Easily the most well-known song from the album, an emotional tribute to Cliff Burton. And by God, I love this song. It's catchy, it's heavy, it's technical yet streamlined, it is one of the quintessential Megadeth songs. Dave's vocal performance here is also fantastic. This is the song I'd say "Mary Jane" is a diet version of.

"Liar" is a kickin' track. It's got a really nice "Chosen Ones"-style groove to it for a while and Dave gives a really good vocal performance all things considered. The best part though is the dual guitar usage. Again, the seeds of 90s Megadeth are planted. In fact the track is almost a Beta "Skin O' My Teeth" in some ways. And then we end on "Hook In Mouth". Holy crap this song. An epic thrashy end that perfectly encompasses both the straightforward and technical aspects.

Ranking:

1. Set The World Afire
2. In My Darkest Hour
3. Hook In Mouth
4. Liar
5. Mary Jane
6. Into The Lungs of Hell
7. Anarchy In The U.K.
8. 502

Production

Time to talk about mixes and masters again. Actually this is a much simpler case than with PSBWB?. There are 3 major mixes of songs on the album. Originally Paul Lani from PS mixed the songs (Only 4 of those mixes have been released). And, well, you can see why he was fired. His mixes had way too much going on and a lot of weird parts scattered throughout.

Then the album was officially mixed by Michael Wagener. Yes, the producer of Master of Puppets, that guy. Just one problem, his mixes weren't very good. They have the opposite problem of the Lani mixes, he cut out way too many elements and used a far too reverb-heavy lo-fi sound. These songs were written for better production than they were given.

Which honestly makes the 2004 remaster the best one. Yeah it has DR issues, yeah it still has some weird things (Like the horns in Into The Lungs of Hell), yeah it's a bit too produced, but it gets closer to the mark than the other mixes. This album needs The Final Kill treatment for sure.

Conclusion

SFSGSW is always deemed the underdog of the Classic Megadeth albums, and I'd agree... but only because KIMB has gotten a boost of praise in recent years. This is a great album, and in fact I'd even argue that it can equal PSBWB. At the same time, there is a certain spark that that album had that this one only shows hints of. Simply put Jeff and Chuck don't have quite the same chemistry on the album as Chris and Gar did. And in many ways SFSGSW is an album unfairly caught in the shadow of it's legendary successor. Even though the seeds were planted here, it's Rust In Peace that usually gets all the credit since it took those ideas to the next level. But let's be clear, there is no RIP without the progression that started here, and that is something big enough to justify the loss of the jazzy spark of the first two albums. The only real stickler that makes this one inferior to PSBWB in my opinion is the production. There is no perfect mix of this album out there. You have to pick your poison between the muddy, reverb-reliant original mixes and the compressed hyper-polished 2004 mixes. Because of that, I never feel as comfortable going back to this album as I do with PSBWB and with the Final Kill version of KIMB. I give this album the irregular score of a 9.25/10. An irregular score, for an irregular album.