Exploding, hypersonic riffs, insane guitar licks and dizzying solos laced with hard-hitting lyrics — these can best describe Megadeth’s twelfth studio album Endgame. Front man Dave Mustaine is clearly in tune with the times, talking about a new world order, recession, corporate greed, war and destruction. The ridiculousness of it all is propped up with mosh-pit thrash and head-crunching riffs with some lightning-speed solos (almost 50 of them) traded between Mustaine and the guitarist Chris Broderick. It is a fireball of an album.

The band begins the opening track Dialectic chaos with an instrumental battle of wits between Mustaine and Broderick — they trade solos accompanied by an onslaught of James Lomenzo’s groovy bass and Shawn Drover’s drumming.

This day we fight takes off with Mustaine’s snarling vocals, followed by 44 Minutes that has a booming bass line and a melodic chorus about an infamous bank robbery shootout. 1,320 almost sounds like the Nineties’ thrash metal scene, while in Bite the hand Mustaine croons Mob on the Wall Street took we the people for a ride. The ominous tone of Bodies is succeeded by the title track Endgame that talks about a controversial bill signed by former US President George W. Bush. The hardest part of letting go is a power ballad and it gives way to Head crusher that, like the medieval torture device it refers to, rattles the bones under your skin. And along comes the refreshing acoustic solo How the story ends. The album is sealed with The right to go insane with a bold bass intro that descends into heavily muted riffs.

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