{"id":270801,"date":"2026-02-02T21:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T21:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/270801\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T21:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T21:28:09","slug":"david-ellefson-reviews-megadeths-final-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/270801\/","title":{"rendered":"David Ellefson Reviews Megadeth’s Final Album"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Megadeth<\/a> bassist David Ellefson<\/a> has offered his thoughts \u2014 both positive and negative \u2014 on the band’s self-titled final album, which came out last month.<\/p>\n

Ellefson\u00a0reviewed the chart-topping\u00a0Megadeth on a new episode of\u00a0The David Ellefson Show, which you can hear below.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Dave Mustaine Discusses Megadeth’s Final Studio Album (Exclusive)<\/a><\/p>\n

David Ellefson\u00a0Identifies the ‘Shining Star’ of Megadeth<\/p>\n

Ellefson \u2014 who served two lengthy stints in\u00a0Megadeth and played on their\u00a0best-known albums \u2014 had plenty of nice things to say about the lineup Dave Mustaine<\/a> assembled for the band’s final record. He singled out pre-release single “Let There Be Shred<\/a>” and praised new guitarist Teemu\u00a0Mantysaari<\/a>‘s performance across the entire album.<\/p>\n

“Look, Teemu is obviously a great guitar player,” Ellefson said. “He’s fantastic. He’s a great player. To me, he’s kind of the story of\u00a0Megadeth right now. He’s the shining star of the group.”<\/p>\n

Ellefson also praised drummer Dirk Verbeuren<\/a>‘s performance, although he\u00a0wished\u00a0Verbeuren’s playing had been captured differently.<\/p>\n

“I wish they would not Pro Tool Dirk Verbeuren so much because the guy can play,” Ellefson added. “We always said he’s the closest to Gar\u00a0Samuelson [who played on the first two Megadeth albums, 1985’s Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good!<\/a>\u00a0and 1986’s Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying?<\/a>] since Gar Samuelson. It’s like, take the guy off the fucking Pro Tools grid. Stop quantizing him and let him breathe a little bit.”<\/p>\n

See David Ellefson Review Megadeth’s Final AlbumThe Megadeth Lyric That Reminded David Ellefson of\u00a0a Classic Rock Legend<\/p>\n

Ellefson also\u00a0praised Mustaine’s lyric-writing abilities and cited a standout moment on\u00a0Megadeth that reminded him of\u00a0a classic rock legend.<\/p>\n

“Dave does write a lyric that you listen to it,” Ellefson said. “I always say when you’re mixing … when the singer comes in, everything else has to kind of step back because people want to hear the singer. I mean, that’s what women listen to when they hear a song. It’s like, listen to the singer, right?”<\/p>\n

The bassist then turned his focus to “The Last Note,” the contemplative closing track on Megadeth.\u00a0“I\u00a0really like the lyric, and I heard Dave’s interview with Jose [Mangin] and he talked about the Bob Seger<\/a> thing, because that’s exactly what I thought,” he said. “I thought, this kind of reminds me of a\u00a0‘Turn the Page’ kind of thing.’ I did like it. I didn’t like the song that good. I was hoping for a better song, but I did like the lyric. And that is very much a Dave lyric.”<\/p>\n

READ MORE: The Best Song Off Every Megadeth Album<\/a><\/p>\n

Why David Ellefson Considers ‘Megadeth’ a ‘Dave [Mustaine] Solo Record’<\/p>\n

Despite the album’s definitive title, Ellefson said he views\u00a0Megadeth less as a band effort and more as a Mustaine solo album.<\/p>\n

“I still look at it as Dave’s retirement because I still think of Megadeth as our band,” he explained. “I think it’s a sin to just go off and claim it as his own.”<\/p>\n

Ellefson elaborated: “I hear it and I go, ‘Okay, this is a Dave solo record. This is Dave and his new band, Dave and his new guys. It says Megadeth so obviously it gets all the attention, but realistically, I hear it and to me it just doesn\u2019t sound like Megadeth. And that’s just me, period. It sounds like Dave doing what Dave does but with a different set of guys in a new day. And this is Dave\u2019s retirement.”<\/p>\n

See David Ellefson in our following list of (almost) every musician who’s been in Megadeth:<\/p>\n

Here’s (Almost) Every Musician Who’s Been in Megadeth<\/p>\n

Here’s nearly every musician that’s been an official member of Megadeth.<\/p>\n

Gallery Credit: Lauryn Schaffner<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson has offered his thoughts \u2014 both positive and negative \u2014 on the band’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,134982,6158,409,43,1548],"class_list":{"0":"post-270801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-link-in-bio","12":"tag-metal","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-rock"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}