Looking back at Megadeth's sixteenth full-length album several years later it comes over as far better than it did on release, not least because we now have seen and heard Dave Mustaine's idea of what a retirement album is! And judged on that, The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead! acts far, far better as a farewell to a band that many of us have loved for much of our lives. The line-up alone simply screams quality, featuring a highly underrated drummer in Dirk Verbeuren and a hugely talented guitarist in former Angra stringsman Kiko Loureiro, not to mention a bass performance from Death and Testament legend Steve DiGiorgio (stepping in for the scandal-struck Dave Ellefson after he had already recorded his contribution!). And yes, although this is a thrash metal album released in 2022 which features an Ice-T guest vocal spot on Night Stalkers, the track itself is far from terrible, having a familiar if hungry and galloping set of riffs and plenty of energy - even said guest rap is over quickly, and the six-minute song length and later acoustic/symphonic interlude makes it seem progressive rather than poppy overall.

Elsewhere, thankfully, the material is even stronger. With something of a loose post-pandemic theme to the cover art and opening title track, the band paints a strongly evocative picture of travelling through lands devastated by the plague angels and with a confident and engaging style of thrash-infused heavy metal driven by the strong guitar riffs and leads from Mustaine and Loureiro, much of this is simply a pleasure to listen to. Dave himself throughout sounds aged if not as bad as on Megadeth, throwing in plenty of shrieks and sneers and using his voice to good atmospheric effect on experimental moments like the softer interlude in the title track. You couldn't call this prog metal as a whole but it's certainly the most adventurous and varied Megadeth album in a while, and whilst not every experiment lands - Dogs of Chernobyl, for instance, drags a little long despite the near symphonic/prog metal opening and the later exciting speed metal sections - the majority of the material is very solid to very strong indeed.

Life In Hell is the first genuine killer, strongly driven and feeling like something from the Countdown to Extinction days with even the spoken word section in the middle underpinned by strong riffing. You could say there are too many spoken sections and acoustic interludes throughout the album, yet they generally don't last long and have enough atmospheric impact to be worth it, the Psychopathy interlude before the much more compelling Killing Time the worst example yet it's barely over a minute long if nothing else. Of course, the strongest songs here are the singles, spaced out well throughout the album and pushing things to an even higher level when they arrive. Soldier On! simply writhes with energy and has one of the best choruses on the album, not to mention the sort of catchy guitar construction that most power metal bands spend their entire careers failing to match. Album closer We'll Be Back is undoubtedly the overall winner, however, being this album's Sleepwalker but better; an intense and blistering thrash workout that will have even So Far, So Good... fans throwing the horns. For unlike Sleepwalker it feels spiritually and physically like a song from the band's eighties peak - remaining the best song that the band have written in years, if not decades.

Elsewhere, even though the album is well over fifty minutes, it doesn't feel packed with filler. Sacrifice is a little weaker thanks to some struggling vocals from Dave but instrumentally is beyond superb, retaining strong hooks and is memorable both for itself and in its position in the tracklisting. Junkie perhaps feels a little too nineties in its chorus yet is buoyed by the riffs and leads, and Célebutante is even better thanks to a driving, almost classic Dio kind of pace and set of riffs that makes plenty of space for slower, melodic guitars without losing intensity, finishing on a rush of adrenaline. Mission to Mars has the most atmospheric heft on the album with those initial almost Burzumic keyboard plinks (not a reference many of you would have expected to see in a Megadeth review!) and continues with what is a surprisingly effective "Dave Mustaine wants to be an astronaut" theme that's best comparable to Rush's Countdown in terms of sheer eccentricity that somehow works! If Dave was even more adventurous on the likes of Rust in Peace, there's little here instrumentally that wouldn't have fit in...

And yet we're all glad he didn't! Indulge your reviewer a little for rambling on, but part of what makes Megadeth such a fascinating band is the chip on Dave's shoulder that didn't just lead to such early classics as Peace Sells and Rust in Peace but to a commercial shift in the 90s that is still underrated (up until Risk, anyway!) and the post 2000s material in its entirety, from excellence to drizzling shit. As a fan of the band, you love it all and have secret highlights from each and every album - god help me, I still love Disconnect and Motorpsycho, will argue the merits of the much-maligned Th1rt3en with anyone, and try to make sense of Super Collider now and then! When I think of Megadeth at their peak, I think of the classics first and foremost of course yet there were plenty of times in recent years when the band threatened to meet or even surpass them and although this isn't close to the best Megadeth album overall, it is surprisingly solid and a far better finale to their career than the immensely disappointing Megadeth.

Far better to think of the band raging through We'll Be Back and hold onto the promise of the song title, than sink into the depressing and disappointing morass of The Last Note and the ensuing even more depressing cover song. On this album, we have two superb cover songs that show Dave still has what it takes - a fast and punky rendition of Police Truck by the Dead Kennedys and a goddamn Sammy Hagar cover in the form of This Planet's on Fire (Burn in Hell) that not only features the old soak, it is genuinely pretty good! Isn't this a better version of Dave and Megadeth, a hungry thrash band giving tribute to past classic rock and punk heroes rather than ranting like clapped out old fools about Metallica-shaped grievances? And isn't this the album that we'd all rather remember, rather than the whimpering Megadeth?