Despite having been around for over 30 years, Megadeth is at a very interesting point in its career. In 2016, Megadeth released Dystopia, which was arguably one of the best albums in its discography, and was largely written by Dave Mustaine. The exceptions to that latter statement being tracks 6 through 8, which were co-written by new guitarist Kiko Loureiro (Angra).
Now the band is working on the followup to Dystopia, which will feature input from not only Loureiro, but legendary drummer Dirk Verbeuren (ex-Soilwork, The Project Hate MCMXCIX) as well! Here's what Mustaine had to say in a recent interview regarding the new material, which is obviously in its infancy.
“What we’re looking at, we’re trying to start the songwriting process this year while we’re out on the road, which will be good for us to start putting pen to paper and writing stuff. Kiko and I have actually been talking a lot about it the last couple weeks, sending files back and forth and so on and so forth, which is exciting for me because that’s what makes me tick is writing music. When I see new files coming back and forth through my email it’s like, “Yes.” It’s like Christmas.”
So back to the main question – why is this album important? Simply put, it has potential to be the heaviest and wildest thing Megadeth has done in a long time, if not ever. Verbeuren is one hell of a drummer capable of insane speeds, and the combination of Mustain and Loureiro has already proven to generate frantic music. Not to mention Mustaine already said it might feature some blasting, which only bodes well.