On March 22, Megadeth will celebrate its 35th anniversary with the release of “Warheads On Foreheads”, a 35-track career retrospective. The anthology spans the band’s entire studio recording career, from its first album “Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good” to its 2016 Grammy Award-winning release “Dystopia”, and will be available as a 3-CD set, a 4-LP set and a digital edition via UMe Recordings. A limited-edition, four-LP set pressed on silver colored vinyl will be available exclusively through the band’s online store, with deluxe bundles to be announced.
“Thirty-five years ago I chose the name Megadeth for my band and I see these songs as the most efficient weapons in the band’s arsenal,” says Dave Mustaine. “‘Warheads On Foreheads’ is a U.S. military term for targeting efficiency. It’s all about using the right tool for the job and these tracks were created for maximum destruction (or stopping power, or something else!).”
In 1984, Mustaine was determined to start a new band that would be heavier and faster than his peers. Mustaine‘s songwriting was rapidly maturing, and he set about combining the attitude and energy of punk, with the power and intricate riffing of metal, along with direct, sociopolitical lyrical content. With David Ellefson on bass and Gar Samuelson on drums, the band recorded its infamous three-song demo which quickly circulated through the underground tape-trading circuit and became an underground hit leading to a deal with Combat Records.
“Warheads On Foreheads” starts at that beginning with the early thrashers ‘Rattlehead’ and ‘Mechanix’ from the band’s 1985 debut, “Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good”, an album that would lay down the blueprint and establish Megadeth as forerunners of what would later be called thrash metal (and recently hailed by VH1 as the greatest thrash metal debut of all time).
Megadeth was quickly signed by Capitol Records and released its 1986 major label debut “Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying?”, which became the band’s first certified gold record and would go on to become Megadeth‘s first platinum-selling release. Featured on “Warheads On Foreheads” are “The Conjuring” and the track “Good Mourning/Black Friday”, which Pitchfork describes as “everything great about hardcore, plus a dose of the kind of show-off skill that makes lesser musicians’ fingers bleed.” Other songs included are ‘In My Darkest Hour’ from its platinum-selling “So Far, So Good, So What!” (1988), ‘Hangar 18’ and ‘Holy Wars…The Punishment Due’ from its Grammy-nominated platinum album “Rust In Peace” (1990), and “Symphony Of Destruction” and “Sweating Bullets” from 1992’s Grammy-nominated double-platinum release “Countdown To Extinction”. Also featured are ‘A Tout Le Monde’ and ‘Reckoning Day’ from 1994’s platinum-selling release “Youthanasia”, ‘Kingmaker’ from 2013’s Top Ten release “Super Collider”, which hit No. 3 on both the Hard Rock Albums and Top Rock Albums charts, ‘She-Wolf’ from the Grammy-nominated Top Ten release “Cryptic Writings” (1997) and the title track from the band’s most recent album “Dystopia”.
Upon its release in 2016, “Dystopia” reasserted Megadeth‘s place at the top of the metal world, equaling the chart impact of their early-nineties output, earning the band its first Grammy, as well as rave reviews (The Guardian gave it five out of five stars and stated “‘Dystopia’ is an absolutely blistering return to the state-of-the-art bombast and refined technicality.”)
Megadeth burst onto the scene thirty-five years ago, virtually inventing a genre and selling more than 38 million albums worldwide, earning numerous accolades including a 2017 Grammy Award for “Best Metal Performance” for the title track ‘Dystopia’, 12 Grammy nominations, and scoring five consecutive platinum albums. With sheer determination and a relentless recording and touring schedule, Megadeth worked its way up from headlining clubs to headlining arenas, festival and stadiums, cementing a legacy that continues to grow and spread throughout the world.
“Warheads On Foreheads” track listing:
Disc 1
01. Rattlehead
02. Mechanix
03. Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good!
04. The Conjuring
05. Wake Up Dead
06. Devils Island
07. Good Mourning / Black Friday
08. Set The World Afire
09. In My Darkest Hour
10. Holy Wars…The Punishment Due
Disc 2
01. Hangar 18
02. Tornado Of Souls
03. Rust In Peace…Polaris
04. Five Magics
05. Take No Prisoners
06. Skin O’ My Teeth
07. Angry Again
08. Symphony Of Destruction
09. Sweating Bullets
10. A Tout Le Monde
11. Train Of Consequences
12. Reckoning Day
Disc 3
01. Trust
02. She-Wolf
03. Wanderlust
04. Dread and the Fugitive Mind
05. Blackmail The Universe
06. Washington Is Next!
07. Head Crusher
08. Public Enemy No. 1
09. Kingmaker
10. The Threat Is Real
11. Poisonous Shadows
12. Death From Within
13. Dystopia
PRE-ORDER BUNDLES AVAILABLE HERE