RUST IN PEACE - REMIXED & REMASTERED
When these eight MEGADETH remixed and remastered titles showed up in the ol' PO box, the FIRST one I tore open to check out was
Rust In Peace because I remember so clearly the day that was released. I was digging through the local Jersey mall record shop in my best fat-kid-headbanger outfit (as we fat metalheads did back in the day), and I saw the yellow cassette that sticking out of the shelf and immediately grabbed it. I remember being so thrilled when I opened up the tape and saw that
Marty Friedman had joined. I was a fan of anything on
Shrapnel Records, as every aspiring shred-head was...simply because these were kids our age (or close to it) who could play ten times better than you could, and who were being recruited into major touring outfits.
I'm sure if I was listening to these on my studio monitors, I could really hear the subtle differences that exist within the remixed and remastered
Rust In Peace, but the main difference (as with many remixes) is that the songs are just much more crisp-sounding. Mustaine's vocals are far more distiguishable too (that could just be the fact that my old cassette is so old beat-to-shit that the only thing I'm going to hear on it is dull hiss and old tape snapping).
To this day, my favorite tracks (as well as the biggest bitches I ever learned to play on guitar) are "Holy Wars" and "Lucretia". Those are enough to give a guy carpal tunnel (by the way, you ever notice how Mustaine always plays with his wrist at a 90 degree angle? How the hell he doesn't have ruined wrists is beyond me).
The bonus tracks are cool; nothing too memorable though. The Nick Menza-penned "My Creation" is a little... uhh... ho-hum. The demos of "Rust In Peace" and "Holy Wars" are interesting to hear, because it gives you a good idea of how much change these songs went through before they hit the final version of
Rust In Peace.
