MEGADETH Begins Recording New Album

MEGADETH has commenced the recording process for its twelfth studio album at the band's own Vic's Garage studio in San Marcos, California. "I laid down drum tracks for the first two songs [on Wednesday, January 7], which I am happy to say, turned out quite well," drummer Shawn Drover writes in an online posting. "Tuesday was spent changing all my drumheads and getting the best possible drum tone [producer] Andy Sneap and myself could, as we are going back to the old school on this in terms of natural drum tone. From this record inspection, I had many conversations with Andy expressing how great so many records sounded back in the day with drum tones, etc. and that we both wanted to get certain aspects of that into what we are doing now. You will hear the results of this when this record is released. Anyway, day two will have myself playing songs number three and four (obviously, no songtitles as I write this) and if we stay on track, I will have eight songs completed on drums by week's end."

Sneap produced MEGADETH's last album, "United Abominations", which came out in May 2007 through Roadrunner Records.

Tentatively due later this year via Roadrunner, MEGADETH's forthcoming LP will be the group's first with guitarist Chris Broderick, who replaced Glen Drover at the end of 2007.

MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine told Revolver magazine that the band's upcoming CD will contain "stuff that's melodic like nobody's business, stuff that's heavier than hell, and stuff that's a combination of both." He said, "The way I write, I'll play a riff and tape it and save it. And if I don't use it now, I'll use it later. The very first song I ever wrote, 'Rust In Peace… Polaris', didn't appear on anything until the fourth MEGADETH record. Right now, there are about 20 songs that are in the making, and there's another good 25-to-30 hours worth of guitar riffs on tape. And I've also got a lot of old lyrics I've assembled over my career. Some of it's relevant to this day and age; some of it is stuff that, if I released it, would probably get me in a lot of trouble. Those songs deal with a lot of the anger that I felt when I was younger and reading things like [the 1971 underground manual for making homemade explosives] 'The Anarchist Cookbook'."

In a recent online posting, Mustaine stated about the band's new material, "I am more excited about this new record than I was with 'United Abominations' or anything in the last several years. . . I am not saying that this is 'Rust In Peace 2'! But I can say that the five out of nine songs I have arranged, I like and love them all, and every one of the songs has one or more of the strong points of me as a guitarist being showcased instead of me writing songs for radio — radio that won't play us anyway. . . This is really going to be a record that will make a lot of people that thought we couldn't do it anymore sit up and take notice."