Reviews: Megadeth, Alkaloid, Temptress, New Mexican Doom Cult (Mark Young & Rich Piva)

Megadeth - Megadeth (BLKIIBLK) [Mark Young]

The second of the Big Four to seemingly bow out, I didn’t expect it to be him. Given that Dave Mustaine built and then sustained a career on wanting, no having to be better than the other band beginning with M, I was surprised that he would finish now. It’s likely that suffering with cancer has taken its toll on him and maybe crystallised plans for packing it in. 

Personally, my own interest in them peaked with Rust In Peace, as the following albums saw them slow down, wear plaid and then really turn into a cast of supporting musicians. 2022’s The Sick, The Dying And The Dead had some crackers, but also some duff tracks so was this going to be similar or is it a worthy last will and testament?

Well, its ok.

One thing he does well is pull those speedy tracks together and make them sound vital. Tipping Point is such a track, opening things off at full pelt. I’ve read comments such as classic Megadeth being applied here, but which version? Is there an argument that any of the personnel assembled since the end of the Menza/Friedman era have meshed together as well that grouping, I don’t think there is. 

Like the other members of the Big Four, they can’t write the same way as they used to and that is a fact. The track listing here runs like a tick list – fast one, slower one, slow again, speed back up and repeat. They aren’t bad songs, just not what I expected this band to sign off with. Let There Be Shred is another blast that is followed by Puppet Parade, which has that classic Mustaine chord set up. You will know it as soon as you hear it, but tempo wise it sounds similar to material from The System Has Failed. 

No soon as this wrapped then Another Bad Day slides in, and as earnest as it is, it represents one of those ‘bloody hell’ moments where you think someone should have pointed out that this is not what fans want. Made To Kill on the other hand is more like it, and personally I’d take this over Another Bad Day and Hey God. The Last Note is the last original composition here, and its his goodbye song. Arrangement wise, it returns to the World Needs A Hero / System sound. 

As a closing song, its fine but I expected so much more something that snarled and spat fire. You want every track to be on fire, something that harks back to that golden period where he was angry all the time but as I mentioned earlier, he is not that man. Does this do the band justice? Just about. 7/10

PS – Bonus track: Ride The Lightning. Now, you might have heard that Dave was originally in Metallica and wrote a lot of their early material. Its been barely mentioned since 1983, and so he decided it would be fun to cover this classic. Its fine, a respectful rendition but that is all it is.

Alkaloid - Bach Out Of Bounds (Season Of Mist) [Mark Young]

And now, a touch of the old culture.

At first glance, the prospect of reviewing a live album that mixes in the works of Bach as well as original compositions didn’t fill me with glee. Live albums are hit and miss affair, my thoughts on this are captured elsewhere this week with The Crawling’s live album. At the risk of repeating myself, capturing that live ‘Boom’ is like trapping lightning. 

It’s rare (Please refer to Thin Lizzy with Armed And Dangerous as one of the pinnacles), but because I’ve already said my piece so I can get straight into it. Bach Out Of Bounds was curated from three selected nights in Holland, with a line up bolstered by Cello, Violin and Accordion. Yep, you read that right, Accordion. I’ll be honest, I’m not going to try and do any form of comparison between their interpretations of the Master’s work. It would be pointless.

Allegro is first out of the gate, and somehow, they manage to make it not just listenable but actually enjoyable. You have to remember that there was a moment when classical motifs were shoehorned into metal as a way of guitarists to show off incredible technical ability. Luckily it didn’t last long but even now the thought of someone blasting out the Flight Of The Bumblebee in a guitar shop leaves me cold. But, it has to be said, listening to this as a full piece of music is certainly an eye opener. There is some incredible guitar work on this and yes, its 8 minutes long but I don’t think you will hear anything like it this year. 

Adagio is next to receive the death metal make-over, this time replete with ethereal vocals from Rianne Wilbers and Julija Hartig dominating. There is an issue here, in that live this would have been something to behold especially whilst the band do their thing in supporting. Listening to it, it falls flat for the most part. I would think that kicking off with Allegro you would need to follow it with something as equally as bombastic in order to keep energy levels up. This piece just doesn’t do that and it’s a shame because it leaves Beneath The Sea with a lot of work to do. As it goes, its not without merit. You get the feeling that seeing this live with that full band and those dual vocals would be so impressive. 

For me, It needed to hit hard which is what Cthulhu does. Its central riff moves like tendrils moving, spidery lines that invoke skittering creatures and this should have come directly after Adagio. The latter stages are home to some phenomenal lead work and suddenly we are back on track. Haunter Of The Voids ups the progressive stakes, warping and moving through different patterns until it detonates around the 5-minute mark into a crescendo of those mental guitar lines that offer two rhythm parts in counterpoint to each other. Its 10 minutes of madness that they carry off with considerable aplomb and with more incendiary lead lines. 

All this leads to the final track, which is just superlative. The Fungi From Yuggoth is simple in its opening moments. Its an almost traditional arrangement, with discordant melody lines that are burnt away with brutally efficient riffs. The strings gradually make their presence felt, not all at once but at key moments as the song moves along its journey. This is the kind of progressive death metal I could listen to all day long. The lead breaks, once again are just fire, we are talking virtuoso here but because of the building around them they do not feel out of place. They are there because they need to be there. The violin breaks act in much the same way – a command of the instrument delivering music that is hanging on by a thread. Just superb.

I didn’t expect to like this as much as I did. Yes, there are missteps on here but they recover from them and deliver one of the albums of the year, just for the sheer naked ambition it shows. 8/10

Temptress - Hear (Blues Funeral Recordings) [Rich Piva]

The first great record of 2026 is here in the form of Hear, brought to us by North Carolina via Texas power trio Temptress. These veterans of the heavy rock scene came together to create one of the surprise killer records of 2023, titled See, that both kicked so much ass and showed the potential of what these three together as a band could be as a true, living and breathing entity, and not just a side project. That potential is fully realized on the eight tracks that make up Hear, brought to us by the amazing Blues Funeral Recordings.

Heavy, doomy, psych-dripping melodic perfection is what Hear is all about. Kelsey Wilson’s guitar work is one of the many stand out aspects of Hear. She flat out rips it up and delivers riff after riff after riff. Andi Cuba’s drumming holds everything together perfectly, always able to create this hypnotic build that leads up to the heavy. Christian Wright’s bass partners perfectly with Cuba, creating the foundation for which the Temptress heaviness is built upon. This is all just on the first track after Intro, titled Narrows. Wright’s vocals paired with the female harmonies just under the surface is developed perfectly. 

There is this mesmerizing quality to Temptress. On the first record, Serpentine was that track that took over control of all of your functions. On Hear, all the songs are at that level of living in your mind, rent free. Take track two, Edge, for example. Wilson’s harmonized siren song vocals trap you with no way out, while dealing a riff right out the 90s Pacific Northwest (with a video to match, who knew they had acting chops!). These Walls is when the trio gets to rip the place up with a high tempo punk inspired song that pairs more harmonies behind Wright’s punk snarl. 

The 90s punk/alt rock of Now Or Never, with Cuba on vocals, is the best Pixies song that has come out in 25 years. Be Still will stop you in your tracks, with its airy and open take on grungy doom, with those wonderful harmonized vocals to take you into the stratosphere. The heavy does not all have to be riff-filled, with the dark and beautiful Downfall showing you exactly why. Oh, don’t worry, it eventually knocks your head off too. I love how the record opens with Intro and closes with Out Of. A perfect pair of bookends for a pretty much perfect record.

January seems to always bring me one record that lasts with me all year. One that lingers in my top three for all twelve months. Temptress has given me this in the form of Hear. A record that rarely leaves my mind when I think about what I want to listen to at any given point in time. No side project, indeed, but one of the best albums I have heard in a very long time. 10/10

New Mexican Doom Cult - Ziggurat (Majestic Mountain Records) [Rich Piva]

Are they a Cult from New Mexico or a New Cult from Mexico? Actually they are a doom band from Gävle, Sweden, and on their second full-length record, the band takes a major step forward with their brand of proto doom, leaning towards lo-fi goodness, that they have delivered on their previous material, with Ziggurat. Candlemass vibes are lurking, but these guys are the real deal who are really starting to develop their own doomy and dirty sound.

Bands like Candlemass, Pentagram, and more contemporary bands like Early Moods and Sahg are what I am hearing on the eight tracks that make up Ziggurat. The Church Of Starry Wisdom is the opener and starts the record off perfectly, with a killer riff, a nice level of doomy fuzz, and this lo-fi vibe I called out in the opening. Don’t think negatively at lo-fi, think more raw sounding than anything else. Great stuff. 

I love the guitar work on the record, with the second song, Metatron being a great example. The guitar is great and it also has this wonderful early 80s metal vibe to it as well. There is a psych thing going on with Cloudrider, which is a song that doubles down on the filthy riff aspect of this record. Return To Babylon gives me some early Trouble and I am always here for that. 

Criosphinx is raw 80s doom goodness while the closer, I Stand Alone is a very cool departure for the band and is the perfect example of why this record is a next step forward for the band. Sungod is the star of the show on Ziggurat. It starts out with some creepy noise before the very slow burn leads to this epic release. I love this track, and it fits perfectly where it is in the sequence.

This is a great second record for New Mexican Doom Cult. While the material from the first record and scattering of EPs and singles have all been really good, Ziggurat shows what this band is really capable of. An excellent collection from this Swedish power house. 8/10