I’m listening to Holy Wars by Megadeth, off their Rust In Peace record.

It’s the first dreary day in Nashville since I’ve been quarantined, and I’m thinking about growing up in Walla Walla, horny and angry, hunched over a guitar, practicing motherfucking MEGADETH YES YES YES YES and slowly making sense of my acned world.

Rust In Piece is the first Megadeth album with Marty Friedman on lead guitar, and his first solo as said lead guitarist happens at 3:27. It’s kooky, angular, shreddy but not overtly so, and decidedly un-metal compared to the diminished arpeggio frenzy of the time. Friedman’s one of my favorite guitarists - acerbic, opinionated, holds his pick bizarrely, and he’s never taken a boring solo in his life. He brought Megadeth out of the let’s play faster than Metallica doldrums and made them unique and daring.

And check out the solo in Tornado of Souls, starting at 3:10 - so good, supposedly, that it drove a jealousy-consumed Dave Mustaine back to drinking.