By Greg Northrup

            At this point, Megadeth just bores me. There is nothing new or exciting about what they are doing anymore and everything they've released since Countdown To Extinction has come off as stale and ultimately irrelevant. On Cryptic Writings Megadeth churns out yet another batch of generic metal songs in an attempt to 'rediscover' their roots after the disastrous Youthanasia. I must admit that vocalist Dave Mustaine's arrogant interview persona may have biased my opinion slightly, but Cryptic Writings is definentaly not the album he cracked it up to be through the media. Supposedly, Cryptic Writings was written as a reaction to what Mustaine deemed to be an overly-commercial record, their previous album, Youthanasia. Ironically Cryptic Writings contains Megadeth's catchiest and most 'commercial' song yet, the infectious "Almost Honest". However, most of the album is marred by attempts at being unnecessarily heavier and faster than Youthanasia. Unfortunately for Mustaine, the harder-than-thou approach falls flat, as far as speed goes, there are plenty of black metal and thrash bands that could play circles around him, as far as heaviness goes, Megadeth is tragically behind the times. To be fair, the album has a few redeeming tracks, the first single "Trust" is pretty good, as is the aforementioned "Almost Honest", and even though the songs aren't great, they're not downright horrible either. Good for a couple listens but that's about it.