The new Megadeth album Endgame came out this week. Overall, I was pretty impressed with the musicianship – especially with new guitar player Chris Broderick. The opening instrumental tune, “Dialectic Chaos” is full of harmonies and classic metal riffs, and totally reminds me of “Transylvania” by Iron Maiden – in a good way. The guitar solos on this album and the harmonies are absolutely shredding. There is no shortage of driving rhythms and there is plenty of double-bass goodness to go around. “Head Crusher”, “This Day we Fight!” and “Bodies” are sure to be the favorites of riff-hungry Megadeth fans.

On the flip side, the lyrics are, well, they’re pretty standard Megadeth lyrics – don’t go looking for Edgar Allen Poe. Some of the topics for song choices seems kind of strange, like “44 minutes”, which seems to be about the famous bank-robbery shoot-out in L.A. Mustaine gets all Barry White on the song “The Hardest Part of Letting Go…Sealed With a Kiss”. The song is a kind of love ballad which features lyrics like, “You have such a pretty face, radiant, I saw you across the room and I new I had to have you.”

Is “Endgame” going to be one of the best albums of 2009? Probably not, but we’ll see. Is it better than anything that Metallica has put out in the past 10 years? Fuck yes. Will Megadeth fans enjoy the album? Absolutely.

Megadeth rocks it on Jimmy Fallon’s late night show.