HYLI Vol. LXXVI - Megadeth and Black Country, New Road

Dear god. This sucks. We switched it up this week and gave each other records that we, personally, hate but thought the other would like. It didn't work.

Hello friends and family. Coming at you another week here. At the risk of y’all thinking we’re more middle-aged than you already do, I’m going to confess to you that Andy and I co-own a … ugh … Dynasty Fantasy Basketball team together (Andy: Go ‘Dors). We are in the drafting stage together and I send this dude texts about “this is who i want to draft, kiss my ass if you disagree” (Andy: rude) and then it’ll come time for us to draft someone and he’s like “omg who are we picking, should i just get this random dude that sucks absolute shit and hasn’t played in the NBA in two years?” No, man. You should not do that. This dude is, conservatively, one of my two or three best friends on the planet and has been for a decade and he straight up doesn’t read what I text him (Andy: We’ve been over this, I can’t read). What’s up with that bullshit? Anyways, I love Andy, I love y’all, and I love music. Except for that song from that ginger bearded kid on a dobro that was Paid Advertising for Fox News. Fuck that dweeb.

Megadeth - Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying?

Andy: This week, we're trying a new theme. Why not? We're not afraid to mix things up. The prompt for this week was to pick a record you don't like but think the other person might enjoy. Simple enough. Let's see how it goes!

I don't like Megadeth. Apologies to the true metalheads I might offend. In my opinion, they don't do a single thing better than any of the other Big 4. They just don't. If you want superior songwriting, a heavier guitar tone, better vocals, or top-tier production, I'd suggest listening to Metallica or Slayer. Dave Mustaine gets under my skin. Sure, he's a brilliant guitarist, but beyond that, he comes across like a dweeb dork. Hey, Patrick/Readers/AI scanning the internet: are you a fan of solos? This album is packed with them, and they're all pretty fun! The problem is Mustaine's insistence on "singing," which ruins the experience (Patrick: i so deeply agree with this). An instrumental version of this, or any Megadeth music for that matter, would be a marked improvement. Their singles? They're fun, and it makes sense why they're popular. But that's about all I need from them. Metallica and Slayer are just leagues better than Megadeth and…we don’t need to talk about Anthrax.

I don’t necessarily think that Patrick will love this but I do think he will enjoy it / like it more than I do (Patrick: well…). I simply just do not listen to any Megadeth and my life is better for it. Maybe there's something in Megadeth's sound that resonates with him on a level I just can't grasp. Maybe he likes putting dog shit directly into his ears. After all, music is about connection and emotion. Maybe he will make that connection that I just refuse to make.

I Hope You Like It Even Though I Don’t At All (Patrick: I didn’t).

Patrick: This one’s on me. I thought it would be a fun idea. So many times in the annals of this newsletter, Andy or I try to send each other something we think the other would maybe like because we love it and it ends up backfiring. I thought maybe there’d be a chance that there could be some music that each of us kinda doesn’t fuck with at all but that there’d be potential for the other one to vibe with it. Straight up didn’t work out (Andy: we all make mistakes).

I’ve heard some Megadeth before, since I like thrash, and they’re one of the big thrash daddies. I love Slayer (complimentary) and I love Metallica (derogatory). I simply ignore Anthrax’s existence (Andy: same). I know the lore between Metallica and Megadeth, as I have logged the motion picture Some Kind of Monster onto Letterboxd several times. I’ve listened to Rust in Peace and Countdown to Extinction because they have “Hangar 18” and “Symphony of Destruction” on them, respectively. However, it seems like - through just glancing at reviews - Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying is kind of The One. Or at least the first one people gave a shit about since it’s their second album, with those other two being their fourth and fifth. I thought, say, I like guitar solos and I like thrash. I even kinda like these two other songs by this band. Why does Andy hate this record? (Andy: because it’s bad)

Probably because it’s bad (Andy: I told you). I identified, quickly, that the other two records I mentioned sound sick because they’re produced within an inch of their souls. They were absolutely working those boards to squeeze every ounce of Dave Mustaine’s voice sounding like dogshit out of the mix and pushing his guitars sounding like the opposite of dogshit about as high as the faders will let them. They didn’t do that on this record. It is impossible to skate around how bad of a vocalist he is. I think part of the reason why thrash is so easy to like for non-metalheads is it’s basically just fast rock. James Hetfield has a fantastic voice, man! Tom Araya doesn’t have that, but he makes up for the lack of “talent” by being totally captivating. Mustaine has neither. Dude is just simply a sick lead guitarist that got too big for his britches and tried to convince the world he was also a frontman (Andy: deff why he annoys me, he shoulda stuck to just shredding). He ain’t that guy. I liked “The Conjuring” I guess. More cool guitar and less cringey singing than some of the other tracks. It was kind of just there. I get where Andy was coming from here: I expected to like this. I liked it more than the albums he has sent me that I absolutely hated but liked it less than most of the others that are simply Okay. Not great!

Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There

Patrick: I’m going to be straight with you: this record sucks shit. It’s for total dork theater kids that didn’t get the attention they wanted during their productions of Fiddler on the Roof so they had to play dogshit horsecrap on the violin and flute to get people to pay attention to them. This is like people from the UK (derogatory) watching the film Lady Bird once and then trying to cover Dave Matthews Band with the snippet of “Crash Into Me” being their only frame of reference but sung by an atonal Paul Banks impersonator. I don’t want to be too rude to the young man singing: it seems he has quit the band due to mental health issues and that stinks for anyone to go through and everything but jesus christ man. Why did you record and release this?

People really would not shut the fuck up about how good this turd is. What’s wrong with y’all? Do you hate melodies? Honestly, I thought Andy would love this because he does, indeed, hate melodies (Andy: this is false). Also, when we did our Post-Punk Playlist week, he - much like me in 2021 - seemed to like this band (Andy: it was one song). They had a good debut! I listened to a few songs last week and they held up! For whatever reason, the band decided to sophomore slump harder than anyone has slumped since Michael Carter-Williams and drop an absolute stinker that is overly long with no ideas. Isaac, the singer on the band’s first two records, left shortly after this one came out last year and the band has released a live album with new songs sung by three of the other members of the band. It is exponentially better than this music for virgins. I’m hopeful that they continue a long and fruitful career of being Simply Average and never dare to release The Worst Music I’ve Heard Since I Had Facial Hair, as they did here, ever again. Hope You Like It!!!

Andy: Dumb-ass album art for a dumb-ass record. Oh hey, look, the music video is dumb also. In theory, this week’s theme should work but, as Patrick said, it definitely did not. The song “Athens, France” by this band on the playlist a few weeks ago? Good and fun! This album, not so much. And that is putting it nicely. Patrick kinda nailed it with the theater kid analogy.

The entire thing is just a chore to get through. Building up to come down, rinse repeat. Mundane instrumentals paired with indifferent, vocals that don't have anything interesting to say and don’t say it in an interesting way. Pretty harmonies sit stagnant in an emotional pool devoid of real life (Patrick: slay). Eventually, those constant crescendos just start to wear you out.

I mean, I get why people might love this, but I am not those people. I don’t really want to even be in the same room as those people. I have nothing in common with those people. I understand Patrick picked this based on my enjoyment of the song from the playlist but my guy should have known I wouldn’t have been about this. He definitely knew, right? Like, if you’ve been on this journey with us for just a few weeks you’d have never recommended this to me (Patrick: but you’re the number one theater kid I know?)(Andy: this cannot possibly be true thought that you have). He definitely did this on purpose, knowing full well I’d be pushing my fingers into my eyes while listening to it.

Does this mean I get to do the same in retaliation next week (Patrick: no)? You want some deathcore next week (Patrick: no)? This is how you get deathcore next week (Patrick: guess I’m sending you some folk!).