Warchest ［4CD+DVD］＜初回生産限定盤＞

総収録時間6時間を越えるメガデスの超豪華ベスト盤!!! バンド・リーダーであるデイヴ・ムステインによるセレクトのCD４枚組＋DVD！さらには30曲の未発表ヴァージョンも収録されており、メガデス20年以上の歴史を語る“これぞメタル・バイブル”!!!

Blender - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "At their peak, on 1990's thrash tutorial RUST IN PEACE, Mustaine and Marty Friedman formed one of the genre's definitive guitar tandems with wrist-spraining feats of metal soloing." Kerrang - "WARCHEST is one of those treat you'll end up listening to for hours....[A] metallic institution." Record Collector - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[P]erhaps WARCHEST's greatest achievement is the accurate picture it draws of a band emerging from the underground with youthful venom....It's quite a ride, and WARCHEST draws a fitting line under it all." Kerrang (Magazine) (p.49) - "WARCHEST is one of those treat you'll end up listening to for hours....[A] metallic institution."

Dave Mustaine, who broke down so candidly in Metallica's SOME KIND OF MONSTER documentary, has nothing to be ashamed of. Since his unceremonious boot from Metallica, he's been responsible for some of the most thrilling, adventurous metal in existence with his project Megadeth. With their first release, 1985's KILLING IS MY BUSINESS AND BUSINESS IS GOOD, Megadeth combined thrash metal heaviness with jazz-inspired improvisation to express Mustaine's singular take on heavy music, and they never looked back. WARCHEST isn't just the most comprehensive one-stop Megadeth collection; it also debuts a whopping 33 unreleased tracks, including an entire show from the band's 1990 peak.
The first three discs feature scattered, thrilling tracks from Megadeth's studio albums interspersed with demos, live songs, and outtakes, including Megadeth standards like "The Skull Beneath the Skin" (from their debut), and "Symphony Of Destruction" (from their crossover smash COUNTDOWN TO EXTINCTION). It's a comprehensive overview of their remarkably consistent output and cynical anti-war political views, not to mention a clinic in colorful, imaginative metal. Disc four, however, is the real treat, presenting an entire 1990 show from England's Wembley Stadium featuring the band fresh off their creative apex, RUST IN PEACE. Altogether, it's over six hours of an exciting, intelligent band that has unfairly stood in the shadow of their leader's former group. With WARCHEST, Megadeth gets an overdue walk in the sun.|

The canonization of Megadeth that began in 2002 with the remixed edition of the band's debut, Killing Is My Business...And Business Is Good! (1985), continued over the years with further deluxe-packaged, remastered reissues of each studio album, and ultimately led to Warchest, a massive five-disc (four CDs, one DVD) box set boasting over six hours of music, including 33 previously unreleased tracks. There's something for everyone -- from longtime fans to neophytes -- in this box, which is similar in both approach and packaging to Slayer's five-disc Soundtrack to the Apocalypse (2003). The first three discs of Warchest are a chronological survey of the Megadeth catalog to date. The first disc covers the time frame spanning Killing Is My Business...And Business Is Good! (1985), Peace Sells...But Who's Buying? (1986), So Far, So Good...So What! (1988), and Rust in Peace (1990); the second covers Countdown to Extinction (1992) and Youthanasia (1994); and the third covers Cryptic Writings (1997), Risk (1999), The World Needs a Hero (2001), and The System Has Failed (2004). Previously unreleased items are interspersed throughout, keeping with the chronological sequencing. The most notable of these are an unabridged session take of "Anarchy in the U.K." (circa So Far, So Good) that segues into "Problems," another Sex Pistols song; a few Rust in Peace demos ("Holy Wars," "Tornado of Souls," "The Five Magics"); and live performances (circa 1992) of several Countdown to Extinction songs. There's also the entire fourth disc, a high-quality live recording of a concert at Wembley Stadium in London on October 16, 1990. The audio is amazing, with stereo separation of the guitars, and toward the end of the concert, former Diamond Head lead vocalist Sean Harris joins the band on-stage to sing "It's Electric." The fifth disc, the DVD, is another live performance, this one at Hammersmith Odeon in London on September 30, 1992. Warchest also comes with an informative booklet laden with photos and discographical notes. If there's a major complaint that could be filed against Warchest, it's that it includes precious little of Megadeth's three key albums: Peace Sells, Rust in Peace, and Countdown to Extinction. But this complaint doesn't carry much weight, because the songs from those albums are indeed here in alternate versions (for instance, the live recordings are primarily of songs from these three albums), and also because any Megadeth fan will want to have those classic albums in full anyhow. ~ Jason Birchmeier