Megadeth Gives Fans A ‘Black Friday’ Offering

In advance of their latest album, Dystopia, Megadeth has given in to the Black Friday madness — sort of.

Record Store Day is a movement put together in 2007 at a gathering of independent record store owners and employees as a way to “celebrate and spread the word about the unique culture surrounding nearly 1,400 independently owned record stores in the U.S. and thousands of similar stores internationally.” Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, Record Store Day invites bands and musicians to push special wares on Black Friday, and this year, Megadeth did just that.

Megadeth has released a special 12-inch vinyl single for “The Threat is Real .”The song will be featured on Megadeth’s upcoming new album, Dystopia,which will be released on January 22, 2016. A limited number of the pressings will be for sale, making the Megadeth release a true collector’s item. The b-side of the 12-inch will be of Megadeth’s cover of “Foreign Policy,” by the punk band, FEAR. The a-side of the single release, “The Threat is Real,” will not only be available on the 12-inch vinyl release, but digitally as well.

Dystopia is Megadeth’s 15th LP release in the band’s 30-year career. Megadeth has been extremely prolific in the 21st Century, as almost half of Megadeth’s releases have dropped in the 2000s.

Megadeth’s Dystopia will feature 11 brand new tracks. The release will be available on both CD and vinyl, as well as digitally through all online partners on January 22.

In October, Megadeth treated their fans to a preview of Dystopia with a digital offering of the song, ‘Fatal Illusion.’ Rolling Stone’s Kory Grow reviewed the track, which features Lamb of God drummer, Chris Adler.

“[Fatal Illusion features] a heavy, creepy guitar line before kicking into jazz bass and a galloping thrash riff that harks back to the group’s early days.”

Megadeth’s Dystopia was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, and mixed by Josh Wilbur (Lamb of God, Gojira, Avenged Sevenfold).

So, which musicians are in the Megadeth lineup for this album? It’s a valid question, as the band has had more members over its 30-year reign than Spinal Tap.

Up front, as always, is Dave Mustaine. The guitar maestro, snarling singer, possessor of the ever-antagonistic attitude, Dave is firmly in place behind the wheel of the Megadeth machine, because, let’s be honest: Dave Mustaine is Megadeth.

Taking on the Megadeth bass duties for Dystopia is Megadeth’s other veteran, David Ellefson. Ellefson took a few years off from the Megadeth machine between 2003 and 2010 when he and Mustaine had a major disagreement over royalties. Now, however, it seems that Ellefson is firmly ingrained once more in the band he’s best known for.

The “other guys” in Megadeth for Dystopia are Kiko Loureiro on guitar, and Chris Adler on drums. How long those two will stick around is strictly up for debate. At the moment, Megadeth’s “lineup” is only listed up through 2014 on the Megadeth website. It is hard to say whether members come and go so often from Megadeth more because of their inability to co-exist with Mustaine, or whether they tend to leave so quickly because Mustaine gets sick of them. Either way, the revolving door of Megadeth’s third and fourth position hasn’t seemed to stifle Dave Mustaine’s creativity.

Though Megadeth has long been maligned by many metal fans as the maniacal red-headed stepchild of Metallica — referring to the legendary firing of Mustaine from the group in 1981 by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, and Cliff Burton — the band has really held its own over the last three decades.