Description

A 14-track career retrospective featuring two new songs, Capitol Punishment: The Megadeth Years attempts to distill the output of a primarily album-oriented band into a set of their best-known (among audiences in 2000) work. Most immediately obvious to fans of old-school Megadeth is that there’s hardly anything from the thrash years: one track apiece from Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying? and So Far, So Good…So What! and two from Rust in Peace. Instead, Capitol Punishment concentrates on their more recent, radio-oriented sound — about two-thirds of its tracks date from Countdown to Extinction on. And it doesn’t even cover that territory very well; two of the four singles from Countdown (“Skin O’ My Teeth” and “Foreclosure of a Dream”) are missing, as are the movie-soundtrack contributions collected on Hidden Treasures (“Go to Hell,” “99 Ways to Die,” “Angry Again”) that helped build their popular audience in between albums. It’s hard to fault what was chosen, because the tracks here do represent some of Megadeth’s most memorable recordings. It’s also arranged in reverse chronological order, which, to the collection’s credit, allows listeners only familiar with the band’s recent albums to trace their development back to its roots. That’s only to a certain extent, though, since those roots are portrayed so sketchily here. A best-of compilation for any group with as large a discography as Megadeth’s is bound to omit at least a couple fan favorites, but Capitol Punishment is far too incomplete to qualify as an essential retrospective and too scattershot to make for a cohesive listen; instead, it’s more of a sampler for casual fans who simply want one disc with some of the group’s most popular songs.

Track listing:
1. Kill The King
2. Dread And The Fugitive Mind
3. Crush ‘Em
4. Use The Man
5. Almost Honest
6. Trust
7. A Tout Le Monde
8. Train Of Consequences
9. Sweating Bullets
10. Symphony Of Destruction
11. Hangar 18
12. Holy Wars…The Punishment Due
13. In My Darkest Hour
14. Peace Sells