The thought hit me when I was listening to a ''Megadeth'' cd at home that Dave Mustaine had this side-project called ''MD.45''. I looked everywhere, in stores, I checked with my friends and after years of searching I finally got it. But I got the remastered edition where Dave himself stood for the new vocals which was a bit disappointing at first, the album sounded almost too similar to his main band ''Megadeth'' but when I got some songs from the original edition with the original singer Lee Ving I changed my mind. The original vocals sounded very odd and I think that it actually sounded better with Dave as the singer. The project is currently inactive.
The original line-up was or is Lee Ving as vocalist, Dave Mustaine on the guitars (of course), Kelly Lemieux on the bass and former ''Megadeth'' - drummer Jimmy DeGrasso. All of you who have heard any ''Megadeth'' album will know how this remastered cd will sound like. Dave's voice is a clear case of Love-Or-Hate vocals, I like Dave's voice so I thought that this album was pretty enjoying. I also think that Dave is an excellent guitarist and he knows how to play the guitar in this album, the guitar work is some of the better if you ask me. The riffing is heavy, somewhat advanced and catchy most of the time, the rhythm sections are solid and the guitar solos is very similar to ''Megadeth'' - soloing. Kelly's bass is also very good in this album, it is loud and clear and is not overdone or to quiet, the bass lines are technical and is basically the same as Dave's guitars. Jimmy DeGrasso is doing really good in this album, actually I find his drumming very good compared to the time when he was playing in ''Megadeth'', the drum patterns has a good variety and the tempos are both slow and fast.
As I said before the songs or the album itself sounds very similar to ''Megadeth'' material so I will give you some quick information about every song and I will try to describe as good as possible, so here we go.
''Hell's Motel'' - Slow intro with clear bass, fast tempo, quite catchy, wierd riffs time to time, the song structure seems a bit complicated to follow though.
'' Day The Music Died'' - Medium intro with power chords, mellow tempo, good flow, a bit catchy, decent guitar solos.
''Fight Hate'' - Thrashy intro, influences from ''Rust In Peace'' or ''TSHF'', the song feels a bit rushed, quite boring song structure, the song basically repeats itself.
''Designer Behavior'' - Cool and clear bass intro, slightly catchy, lots of bass, this song also seems to repeat itself (because of the lyrics), good flow.
''The Creed'' - Heavy guitar intro (too long though), has a swaying blues feel, pretty good flow, a bit catchy, boring guitar solo.
''My Town'' - Slow intro with heavy power chords, fast tempo, heavy sound, pretty catchy, great drum work, has a good flow.
''Voices'' - A medium paced song, cool bass lines, the verse feels a bit boring and uninteresting, not a catchy song, good flow but odd song structure.
''Nothing Is Something'' - Wierdest song on the album, bad vocals, odd flow, not a catchy song, boring solo, quite a technical structured song.
''Hearts Will Bleed'' - High-hat tappings, mystic bass lines, pretty strong song, an easy-digested song, has one of the best guitar solos (typical Megadeth style).
''No Pain'' - Intensive song, quite heavy, has more thrash-formula, boring song because of the lack of variety in the song.
''Roadman'' - Building guitars as intro, complexive riffing, fast pace, pretty catchy song, feels very familiar with ''Megadeth'' material.
And then we are done, I hope this was to at least some help. I knew before that Dave made a remastered version of this album and then I started imagine how it would've sounded like bit this was a bit of a surprise. It did sound very similar to Dave's work in ''Megadeth'' because the musical performance was still pretty advanced and yet catchy, but some of the songs were very boring because there was a poor variety in the them, the lyrics was also pretty boring because of the same thing. But I am a big fan of ''Megadeth'' so this album was quite enjoying to me and if I would recommend this album to someone then it would be ''Megadeth''-fans and/or other metal heads or hard rockers.
PROS
+ Megadeth people would enjoy this if you got the remastered version
+ Dave delivers some nice guitar work here
+ DeGrasso's drum work must be the best in this album
CONS
- Some songs have poor variety
- The lyrics are also poor when it comes to variety
- The song structures are pretty straight forward too, poor variation
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Designer Behavior
-- Hearts Will Bleed
-- My Town
Overall album rating will be: 3/5
