Overview: Should be called Average Collider.
Super Collider is the 14th album from thrash gods Megadeth. This is the bands 4th album in the last 6 years which is a pretty good amount of music coming out in a relatively short amount of time. To put it in perspective the band Tool has been around for 23 years and has released the same amount of albums.
Negative: For me, the band has kind of been on a downward slope, I loved 2007's United Abominations, 2009's Endgame was pretty good, while 2011's TH1RT3EN was lackluster. I heard the lead single which is the title track and hated it, the song is just plain bad. It's a poppy take on metal and it doesn't work at all for me. This album for me, the bulk of the tracks just blend together and don't stand out for better or worse. By now the Megadeth formula has been pretty standard lately, great guitarwork, Mustaine's trademark vocals, corny yet somehow cool lyrics and a great rhythm section to pull it all together. All of that is present on Super Collider yet somehow it still falls short. The band plays fantastically and Mustaine still sounds Mustaine-y. A complaint I've heard rather frequently about this album is that it's not fast-paced and thrashy, while that's true that doesn't mean it's bad. Slayer's Diabolus in Musica was slower and I personally love that album. Metallica's black album was slower and that brought metal to a whole new level. The difference between those albums and this one is that those albums were good. Mustaine's lyrics are cornier than ever and sound almost uninspired. The track "Off the Edge" made me laugh because he talks of how he's insane and the world is going crazy and it's funny because everyone knows he's crazy and he's acknowledging it now and it's comical, song sucks though. The cover of Thin Lizzy's "Cold Sweat" was odd, it's a decent cover, I prefer Sodom's cover of it and obviously, being a huge fan of Thin Lizzy, I love the original. Megadeth does it justice, but not enough to be a notable cover. Also this album title sucks really badly.
Positive: With all of that being said, this is still Megadeth and they still write some kick ass music. The opening track "Kingmaker" is a great track, one of the faster ones on the album. "Burn!" is a cornier track yet it works so well and it's a great song. David Drainman of Disturbed(yes, I know he has his band Device now but no one gives a shit about them) has a feature on the album, the track "Dance in the Rain" and being a fan of Disturbed I was looking forward to his guest spot and he delivered. The track is a good track without him, the band slows it down and builds it up to a killer solo and then Drainman's vocals and it cements the song together. Drainman doesn't use his typical Disturbed-style vocals(there's no ooh-wa-ah-ah), it's a darker sounding tone and it works with the song. "The Blackest Crow" is an interesting track, complete with a slower tempo and a banjo, you read that right. I don't love the song but something about it keeps me coming back. The final track that I have in the "positive" column is the song "Forget to Remember, it's a pretty good song, it's a midtempo track, it sounds like it should've closed the instead of the Thin Lizzy cover.
The band is fantastic, the riffs are great, Chris Broderick's leads are amazing, as are Mustaine's. Ellefson plays well but there weren't many standout basslines that we've come to expect from him. Shawn Drover's drumming is always great and he doesn't disappoint on this album either.
I really want another track like "A Tout le Monde" a nice slower track with a perfectly placed guest vocal spot(guest vocals not necessary though). I really think Mustaine and the band should take a little while off, they've been cranking out albums like crazy, which is good provided the music stays good. So I think they should tour for this album then maybe take the rest of the year off, from touring and writing, then play some festivals in the summer of '14, then maybe a sweet Winter tour then a few months off for the band from touring and writing again then after that maybe start writing, let everyone recharge their creative batteries. Just my opinion.
Overall: A decent album, definitely not as bad as Risk as some have called it. It's one of the worst Megadeth albums but with a discography the stature of Megadeth's that's not saying that it's really a bad album per se. It's worth picking up if you're a Megadeth completist, if not, check it out on YouTube first.
Rating: 6/10
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