MEGADETH — Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good! (review)

MEGADETH — Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good! album cover

Album · 1985 · Thrash Metal

1/5 · 2015-09-23
martindavey87

Surely every heavy metal fan knows the story of Dave Mustaine being kicked out of Metallica and forming Megadeth? Right? No? Ok, I'll wait here while you quickly look it up.

Done? Good.

With Megadeth, Mustaine had one goal, and that was to create something faster, heavier and more extreme than his former band. It's arguable, but I'd say he succeeded. 'Killing is My Business' certainly has a raw, ruthless energy to it, and whilst it oozes bloodthirsty hatred towards Hetfield and Ulrich, it sadly comes at the expense of the actual compositions.

Sure, the riffs are fast, the vocals are full of spite and bitterness, and the songs rage with angst and rebellion, but to be honest, it quickly becomes very repetitive. The horribly tacky and rushed production makes most of the riffs indistinguishable, and the guitar solos sound like nothing more than an annoying, high-pitched flail of notes. And I'm fairly sure a five-year-old could come up with more interesting vocal melodies than this.

There's only really one or two memorable moments on this album. 'Last Rites – Loved To Deth' is probably the only song I'd consider passable, whilst all the others have the odd riff here or there, but there really is nothing that can truly save this debut. Then there’s ‘Mechanix’, the infamous song that Mustaine introduces as; “There’s their version, and there’s OUR version”. Sentimentality aside, Metallica's version (titled 'The Four Horsemen') is simply better in every way.

Megadeth are a fantastic band, and this is really the only record of theirs I don’t like. I've got to believe that if this was the debut from any generic thrash metal band in the 80's, they probably never would have made it to the 90's. Thankfully for Mustaine, he was a member of the genres biggest band and had garnered himself a cult following that gave him the opportunity to progress past this album. And to be fair, most metalheads in the 80's loved it regardless. 'Cause they'd buy anything anyway.

God-awful debut, but better things are coming.

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more than 2 years ago
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voila_la_scorie wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I bought it because Peace Sells was just so awesome but I was really disappointed. I think there was one song I liked. Mechanix may have had the cool riff but lyrically it just seemed, I dunno, silly compared to the theme of Four Horsemen. Dave's a superb guitarist and composer and I love his unique vocals, but this album was part of my first great cassette unloading in the late eighties and I never felt like buying the CD. Who knows? Maybe I might like it better now...?

Kingcrimsonprog wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Everyone's entitled to their opinion but I love this album. Great fun. Mechanix I find to be more succinct, more aggressive and more enjoyable.

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I don´t like this album one bit either, so I guess it´s one of those ocean dividers :-)

Vim Fuego wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Harsh. Love this album. Sure, the next two are better, but if you look into why it sounded so terrible, and how badly the band got shafted by the label at the same time, it's easy to cut them a bit of slack. And personally, I find The Four Horsemen bloody boring, while Mechanix is a lot more interesting, apart from the tacky lyrics.

Unitron wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I like this one, but I agree that they indeed got better. In fact, 'Peace Sells' is one of my favorite albums of all time.

siLLy puPPy wrote:

more than 2 years ago

So disagree. I never liked this initially but it did weasel its way into my heart. Not sure why it did. Does anyone understand these things? Hope you can find some pleasure in this some day. I can understand not diggin' an album but only 1 star? Sorry you feel it's the worst of the worst. Personally i can't stand the "So Far" album but it still is worth at least two stars. Oh well, guess we all have some album or another that drives us crazy :)