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There has been a lot of smoke around this release. Is Dave Mustaine singing on the album, is he playing guitar? With Dan Spitz playing lead guitar, rhythm guitar and bass, you can say that it is his project for sure. On the internet there have been lots of speculations, if you want to know more about it just check it out. Listening to the first track, you could almost put your hand in the fire and say: that it is Dave himself on vocals, but listening closer... and closer and closer.... I'm not really sure. Checking the info I read that Don Chaffin is responsible for the singing. O.k., but often he sounds more like Mustaine than Mustaine himself.

If I have to believe what is said about this album, Dan Spitz wrote all the songs and in tracks like "Standby Passenger" you can surely hear that, but biggest part of the songs sound Megadeth-like. Not only the singing, but also the riffs and the song structures. It's hard to believe that Dave Mustaine's hand isn't behind any of the songs. Sometimes it sounds a bit more modern and in "One Shell" I even here a Rage Against the Machine resemblance.

What is Dave's contributions to this album then? Well, he wrote some lyrics and was together with Dan responsible for the co-production. Listening to the tracks "Standby Passenger" and "Puzzle Box", it is like I am listening lost tracks from the 'Peace Sells' album. You hear I still have difficulties in believing that Dave didn't have more musical influence on this album than said.

Conclusion is however, that this is a nice album to listen to. Fans of Megadeth will certainly like this stuff. Question however is whether or not there are some new or exiting things on this album, but that is not the case. Just some good listenable old school thrash metal.

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