Megadeth - Cryptic Writings

The very last album I bought from Megadeth was 1997's Cryptic Writings. It wasn't because the album sucked. Quite the contrary actually. This ended up being the last CD I picked up from Mustain and crew because the next couple sucked, and I haven't really listened to all that much since then. These days I find everything sounds like it's just more stuff from Hangar 18, and I wasn't such a fan of that album.

I would say that this is most likely my second favourite Megadeth album. Peace Sells is my flat out favourite, but I'm not sure if I like this album or Countdown To Extinction better. I would lean a little more toward Crypitc Writings just because it's less commercial and much heavier than normal. Megadeth is a Trash Metal band and normally sounds like it. On this album they sound more like a Classic Metal band. The music isn't about jamming as many shredding riffs into a song as possible. Instead there good solid melodies, rhythms, methodical stylings, and a variety of musical inspiration.

The album opens with Trust. I love the drum opening. It hard, tribal, and driving. It's this beautiful thunder that just rumbles into a great lead off track. Lyrically the title covers it, especially when you factor in a certain type of paranoia Mustain has developed over the years. Fantastic song though.

Almost Honest is a really cool follow up. Instrumentally it's a bit lighter than normal, a lot of accoustic guitar work. But it's very effective with the upbeat flavour of the song. Once again the lyrics pretty much cover what the song is about. It's nice to know what you are getting before you get it sometimes.

There's a little clip at the beginning of Use The Man of a completely different song. As I go through the liner notes I can't find the name of it. However, it does set a really neat mood before a nice and heavy song about drug abuse kicks in.

Lyrically speaking Mastermind is a bit of a mental mind fuck. "Anonymous existence, rendered useless to mankind / Destroy the logic volume in the confines of the mind / Enmassed and purposeless, marching in a perfect line / Neo-neuro torture, mental meltdown, a heinous crime / Mastermind, I tell you what to think / I tell you what you need / I tell you what to feel / Invade the core of souls to wipe the lives away / Design vacant beings, welcome the inhuman race / Encrypted horror codes, directive psyche overwrite / Processing brains to pabulum, delete and format living drives / I tell you what's real / Hail to the power age, lest the viral hour comes / Raise the flag of voltage, bow to circuitry unknown / Kneel before the processor, lords of static laugh / Electrons in submission, you must know who I am / I tell you what to think / I didn't care what you thought / I tell you waht to get / I don't care what you got". The production on this song is fantastic as well. It really brings Dave's insanity out in a way that's different from the normal high pitched snarl. However, I don't know if your typical Megadeth fan would really care for this one, it's a bit left field.

The Disintergrators is pretty much a Power Metal type of track. A little fantasy/sci-fi set to a really fast tempo and just a lot of stuff going on, kinda sorta. I don't mind it when it's playing, but not a song I go out of my way to listen to.

I like when Dave keeps it mellow, in that dark and brooding kind of way. I'll Get Even is very much like that. This is another really solid song. It's easy to guess what the song's about, but I like the fact that the lyrics are sung decently, or spoken clamly. There's a bit of a Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap feel to this one, but with the slow creep of Night Prowler. It's a great dramatic effect.

I should mention that the production is what makes this album. Dann Huff did a great job of making Megadeth sound like something more than just a pissed off Metal band. He refined them into a solid band, with well thought out riffs and rhythms. The shredding is left for the solos and the fills. The album is very Black Sabbath that way.

Sin is a bit different. The word sin only appears twice in the song and I always think it's called Under Pressure or Set Me Free. The thing is this song has no real chorus, and that is awesome. "He had an unfamiliar face / Complete life in disarray / A simple man, power drunk / No worries of living, no more anything / Deep inside I've seen it rise / Actions progress to no end / Mirror, mirror please look inside / Do you see that reasons that we sin". The last word in that last time is the first time it appears, the next time isn't until the end of the song. The music is cool, but nothing special.

I'm not sure where I stand with A Secret Place. I like the sitar sounding guitar, and the way this song is arranged, as well as the instrumentation, but I don't buy Dave's take on the lyrics. "There's a secret place I like to go / Everyone is there but their face don't show / If you get inside you can't get out / There's no coming back, I hear them shout / Welcome to my hide away, my secret place / How I arrived I can't explain / You're welcome to, if you want to stay / But everyone just runs away / Let me in, get me out / Can't do more then twist and shout / Lost my soul without a trace / Found it again in my secret place / In discrace / I hide from those that try to find me / Scary things that's right behind me /I lost myself, I must confess / I can't explain how I got this mess". It just doesn't seem right to me for reasons I can't properly explain.

Have Cool, Will Travel is as close to a Blues song as I think Megadeth has ever gotten, or will ever get. There's even a little harmonica in there. Let's say this song is Blues Metal, and it's good. Once again, I like it playing on the CD player, but don't see a need to put it on my Mp3 player.

The two biggest filler tracks to me are in the standard filler positions. She-Wolf is another Power Metal style song. It's not bad, but nothing special either. Sorry to anyone that's currently cursing me out, because for some odd reason this is your favourite song from this album. I think you only like it for the Iron Maiden sounding guitar parts in the middle to end of the song.

The other one is Vortex. It's a decent enough song, but at this point in the album it sounds pretty stock. I don't feel a need to go out of my was to skip it, but if I have the remote handy, or am walking by the CD player I will hit the button.

However, it can also be used as time for a bathroom break.

FFF is an abbrieviation essentially for "Fight for freedom, fight authority / Fight for anything, my country tis' of me", which is the chorus of the song. This song is pretty much Motorbreath (see the humour in that one?), just a little shorter and with lyrics about fighting for freedom. It's a good song to end the album on.

Like I said it's the production that makes this album for me. It's nothing over the top crazy, but when you look at a list of artists he's produced for, this album starts looking like the piece of art that it's supposed to be. Some names include; Carrie Underwood, Amy Grant, Keith Urban, Faith Hill, Trisha Yearwood, Reba McEntire, Suzy Bogguss, Hunter Hayes, Kathy Mattea, Lonestar, Jewel Kilcher, Rascal Flatts and Martina McBride.

You might think this would sound like a country album, but you'd be wrong. So very, very wrong. It's totally a Classic Metal album, although maybe not an actual classic.

7/10 - content

9/10 - production

8/10 - personal bias