Though
Megadeth and their founder
Dave Mustaine have spent their entire existence just a few steps behind
Mustaine's former group
Metallica, it's important to remember that they've also spent a lot of time as one of the most popular metal bands in the world. The summit of their commercial success came in 1992 with fifth album
Countdown to Extinction, a creative high point from
Mustaine and crew possibly spurred on in ways by the footrace with
Metallica and the leaps in production made on their self-titled 1991 breakthrough album. Twenty years later,
Countdown still stood as
Megadeth's best-selling album, and in many circles, their most loved material.
Countdown to Extinction: Live is a concert document of the 20th anniversary tour that found the band playing the album front to back, bookended by a few odds and ends from other albums. While the premise seems pretty rote, the execution of the live album is surprisingly interesting. Most live re-creations of full albums fall flat in comparison to the original artifacts, but it's great to hear the devoted legions sneer along with every word of
Mustaine's schizophrenic monologue on "Sweating Bullets" and cheer insanely at the now-dated
George Bush samples that pop up throughout the set list. ~ Fred Thomas