Daveportivo's Cultural Evaluation Facility

So behind two genre defining releases it seemed that everything else in 1986 was doomed to be completely overshadowed. Well oddly enough Kerrang magazine overlooked both Master Of Puppets and Reign In Blood in favour of the then overrated and now underrated Eat 'Em And Smile by David Lee Roth. Elsewhere the biggest commercial release in hard rock came from Bon Jovi with their career high point (I know that sounds like a contradiction in terms) Slippery When Wet. Yet my choice for the 1986 entry comes from another legend of the bay area thrash scene, after all 1986 was year of Thrash, the year that Hair Metal was forced to play second fiddle to something harder and more brutal.

You almost feel bad for Megadeth and Dave Mustaine, sure they've had success, but they've deserved so much more. Mustaine is a riff machine, an iconic front man and a hell of a song writer but he blew his chance with Metallica after the lightening bolt opening statement Kill 'Em All, and in the year when his own project Megadeth truly hit form with Peace Sells...But Who's Buying not only did Metallica return with arguably the greatest heavy metal album of all time but fellow Thrashers Slayer leap frogged them in the pecking order with Reign In Blood. You have to wonder where Megadeth would rank in the metal pantheon had this album been released just a year earlier or even a year later, in hindsight 1987 could have been the year of Anthrax and Megadeth following the year of Slayer and Metallica, but this was not to be.

While Peace Sells... may be the weakest of the classic Thrash albums it can't help but feel like the most urgent. While Reign In Blood beat the shit out of you and Master Of Puppets made your jaw drop, Peace Sells... got you all riled up. It feels like a punk classic, full of rage and political disgust. The tone is set by the album title and the iconic art work which sees the United Nations building destroyed by a nuclear holocaust. The album features similar themes of destruction with hell absorbing the earth, while this may all seem occult, it's all framed around ideas of political frustration and a sense of disgust for the way human beings were treating one another. When set against the back ground of the Greed Is Good culture of the UK, the Reganomics of the US and the wider context of the Cold War; Peace Sells... feels even more vital and actually feels like a historical artefact. Musically Megadeth are on fire with some seriously frantic fretwork that can't help but wow on the relentless "Good Morning/Black Friday" and album closer "My Last Words". Peace Sells... only real weakness is it's lack of clear hooks, while Mustaine raves like the hellish offspring of Axl Rose and James Hetfield (ironically two acts he inspired) he can't seem manage to write the kind of big choruses synonymous with those two hard rock legends. Which is a shame as when Mustaine does stumble across a half way decent hook the results are nothing short of genius, as seen on "Wake The Dead" and of course "Peace Sells". However this is a minor quibble on one of the defining thrash albums, and after all who needs catchy hooks when you've got this many face melting solos. By the time your done with Peace Sells... your fingers will be begging for mercy after fifty five minutes of non-stop air guitar action.