### Megadeth: So far, so good... so what!

#### 06/08/09 || Smalley

“So far, so good… so what!” is pretty much the bastard lovechild of 80’s Megadeth; after the underground praise for “Killing is my business… and business is good!”, and the huge mainstream success of “Peace sells… but who’s buying?” (ellipses overload!), “So far” was a disappointment, with a shoddy production job resulting from Dave Mustaine using label money that was supposed to go towards the album to feed his drug habit instead. But, I’m letting Mustaine off the hook in mouth some here, since I won’t be reviewing the crappy original version of “So far”, but the remastered and improved one instead (so sue me if I wanna ignore a mistake he made when young and stupid and stuff!!!). But, even on the remaster, the album’s sound is still far from perfect, and the best production in the world still won’t fix weak songwriting, but more on all that in a moment.

Instrumental “Into the lungs of hell” starts with really crude-sounding guitarwork (like I said, even the sound on the remaster has problems), but the riffing soon improves, and leads the track into a three minute show-off fest with ‘deth’s instruments. It’s pretty cool at first, but eventually puts off the meat of the album (i.e. songs with vocals) for too long; still, a decent track. “Set the world afire” follows that up with some pretty intense riffing, but once Dave starts singing, his vocals are cracked and strained, of course, not a surprise, considering what he was putting in his body back then. Even worse, a problem emerges on “Set” that will be a constant on this album; the songwriting lacks strong direction, and feels like it was written by someone who was being distracted by something else, and didn’t put enough effort into the job at hand (which is pretty much the truth). So, I feel that not only did Dave’s drug habit hurt the production and vocalwork on “So far”, but its basic songwriting as well, perhaps the greatest victim of them all, and is the biggest reason why this album disappointed so many.

After that is a cover of “Anarchy in the U.K.”, a logical choice (perhaps too safe a one?) for Megadeth, considering Mustaine’s vocal style and all, and they even have Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones play one of the solos (cool!), but it feels wrong to have the cover song this early in the record, plus, it’s a pretty straightforward transplant of the Pistols’ original. Yes, the two Megadeth albums before this one had cover songs too, but at least both of those still offered something new. Anyway, then there’s “Mary Jane”, which gives us the most unfocused songwriting here, and leaves me completely aloof, without any sort of positive-ish impression. It just comes and goes and leaves without grabbing me at all, so it’s definitely the weakest track on “So far”.

“502” has a few nice audio skits where you can tell Dave was having fun with the song (you’ll hear what I mean), and it at least has more bite to it than “Mary jane” did, but it’s still a pretty middling thrasher. The bitter “In my darkest hour” (the closest thing to Megadeth having their own “One”) was written by Dave right after he heard about Cliff Burton’s death, and while the first half drags a bit, it still at least has some direction to it, and the second half of the song gains more focus, with a nice, speedy tempo going on. For that, “hour” is one of the better tracks here, though I admit, that really isn’t saying a lot.

As for “Liar”… I don’t like it at all. It has some particularly nasty vocalwork, and while the riffs are decent, its childish lyrics, written to trash former member Chris Poland for allegedly selling band equipment for heroin, really gets on my nerves: “Your sister is a junkie, gets it anyway she can/Your brother’s a gay singer in a stud leather band/Your girlfriend’s got herpes to go with the Hep and AIDS/There ain’t one person you know you ain’t ripped off yet”. Is it any surprise, writing shit like this, that Mustaine had a hard time keeping bandmates in the 80’s? Whatever; “Hook in mouth” is the album closer, and shows Mustaine directing his anger at a much more worthy target, that bane of all things 80’s metal, the PMRC. Accordingly, it has the most relentlessly aggressive songwriting on the album, with a malicious bass undertow and strong riffing and soloing, easily making it the very best song on “So far”, and the only one here I can really call “good”.

So, there are some good riffs and solos to be heard on “So far, so good… so what!” (and they almost make me like the record, since I’m really into the old Megadeth sound), but the uneven songwriting, along with the intermittently too-rough guitars and the constantly too-ugly vocals from Mustaine both hurt my enjoyment a lot, making “So far” an unsatisfying listen. Check out anything else Megadeth made from ’85 to ’97 before you try this one, since it’s definitely the worst album from that period of the band (though not the absolute worst album they’ve made). I know the score pic for a 6.5 reads “We are definitely heading for decent territories now”, but imagine it says “We definitely fell short of decent territories” instead, and you’ll have a much better idea of what I think of this album.

- Information
- Released: 1988
- Label: Capitol
- Website: www.megadeth.com
- Band
- Dave Mustaine: vocals, lead and rhythm guitars
- Jeff Young: lead and rhythm guitars
- David Ellefson: bass guitar
- Chuck Behler: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Into The Lungs Of Hell
- 02. Set The World Afire
- 03. Anarchy In The U.K.
- 04. Mary Jane
- 05. 502
- 06. In My Darkest Hour
- 07. Liar
- 08. Hook In Mouth
- 09. Into the Lungs of Hell (Paul Lani Mix)
- 10. Set the world Afire (Paul Lani Mix)
- 11. Mary Jane (Paul Lani Mix)
- 12. In My Darkest Hour (Paul Lani Max)