Cryptic Writings is the first studio album after the phenomenal duo of Countdown to Extinction and Youthanasia. I guess that’s a bad thing, because wherever they had released at that point in their career was bound to be a disappointment to me. And It was, when it first came out and I listened to it the first couple of times. The production lacked the tight dry sound as the two predecessors had. And, to me, the songs are just not good enough. They’re also not ”Metal” enough.
But…if I’m gonna do Megadeth Monday I just cannot skip an album because I didn’t like it when it first came out. I need to take the time to re-aquintence myself with it. So I did. My stance hasn’t changed. I still don’t like Cryptic Writings. There are a couple of songs that drive up the rating, and they drive up the rating quite a lot since these few songs are the entire reward of the album for me.
There are no real memorable riffs, which seems a bit odd as we’re talking about a riffmaster like Dave Mustaine. That never used to be a problem, either from the guitars or from the baseline from David Ellefson. I’m not sure where it went wrong, maybe the search for a more commercial sound went a little too far?
It might also be that Marty Friedman seems to have more influence over this album, he has more songwriting credits than on the predecessors for sure. Please note that I’m not bad mouthing him, I’m merely stating the facts and speculating a bit. And, on the other hand Marty Friedman is also involved in my absolute favorite track on Cryptid Writings – Almost Honest and Use the Man. The latter having the fantastic lyric
I’ve seen the man use the needle
Seen the needle use the man
I think I could spend quite a lot of time formulating a stance about that. What it means to me and my interpretation of the meaning. But it would be so personal that it would probably make no sense to include it in a review. Not that my reviews usually isnät personal, I think they always are. I tend to discuss this surrounding the albums and the films and not just the main topic.
