MEGADETH – Arsenal Of Megadeth

The history of Megadeth has been written by Dave Mustaine’s strong and sometimes capricious personality. The birth of Megadeth split the Metal scene into two camps, having the uprising band Metallica on one side, where Mustaine was once the lead guitarist. This DVD compilation should in no way be considered as the “answer” to Metallica’s Rockumentary, Some Kind of Monster, where the Ulrich-Mustaine discussion created a fuss, but instead as an excellent chronicle of this most important band.

The tracks on the double DVD are presented in chronological order, starting from the band’s second album Peace Sells, But Who’s Buying? instead of the debut Killing Is My Business, possibly due to the fact that Capitol Records didn’t have the legal rights.

The first DVD covers the era from Peace Sells, But Who’s Buying? through Countdown To Extinction. The fact that video clips were transferred from the original VHS versions justifies some complaints about the picture and the sound quality. In some way this is kind of cool, because it would ruin the whole 80s atmosphere if the clips where overproduced to make them look nicer. In the track list, there’s a 1986 interview with the band talking about the birth of Megadeth, some album commercials, and, of course, the video clips from that era with “Wake Up Dead,” the Sex Pistols cover “Anarchy in the U.K.,” “Alien,” “Hangar 18,” and “Skin O’ My Teeth” (dedicated to sky diving), to name a few. “Angry Again” and “99 Ways to Die” are missing, but this gap is filled with some live footage from the legendary Clash of Titans Tour, and the whole MTV Headbangers’s Ball show, Mission Megadeth, showing Mustaine performing his first solo sky dive. The first DVD closes with the best Megadeth video clip, “Sweating Bullets,” due to the excellent direction and Mustaine’s superb performance like a professional actor.

The second DVD starts with the Youthanasia release. The cover art of this album, showing some babes hanged by their feet to dry like freshly washed clothes, caused some censorship issues back in the day. There are interviews covering the album art issue, explaining the lyrical content of “Killing Road,” and why “A Tout Le Monde” is not a suicide song. Apart from the video collection with “Train of Consequences,” “Reckoning Day,” “Secret Place,” and “Insomnia,” among others, there is some wild live footage from Argentina in 1998 where the band also performed an acoustic show (they should have added more from that!) and two live songs during the Giganatour in 2005. As a special treat, there is Mustaine’s guest appearance on The Drew Carey Show in 1998, proving that he could try to make a move into the movie industry.

Megadeth has been against the “politically correct” attitude during their history, and yet in the DVD, they have censored themselves by cutting off all the “bad” words, which is bound to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of all the diehard fans.

After watching this double DVD, you can be sure that you’ve just got the whole picture of Megadeth … a band that fortunately remained in the Metal scene despite Mustiane’s health problems four years ago. Just hope that there are still some empty chapters in Megadeth’s story that are waiting to be told … possibly in a future DVD release.