It’s been 43 years, 17 albums, and 32 member changes since Dave Mustaine was kicked out of Metallica, the fabled schism that galvanized the thrash-metal pioneer to form his own band. Megadeth was fueled by spite, inspired by speed, and enabled by Mustaine’s preternatural gift for Flying V warfare, as well as his knack for asking provocative economic queries about the salability of peace. For four decades, Megadeth have been high priests—not the highest, but close—in a church of metal where technical prowess, breakneck tempos, and sneering attitude are the holiest of virtues. Megadeth have weathered nearly all of metal’s generational permutations, only once deviating from their heshin’ formula with 1999’s infamously confused country’n’industrial mish-mash, Risk.

Like most ’80s metal heroes who briefly lost their way in the late ’90s, Megadeth have spent the 21st century varnishing their legacy with what’s tried and true, delivering eight LPs since 2001 that all basically sound the same. And now, not by choice, but by necessity, Megadeth are exiting the business with their self-titled swan song. Mustaine, the band’s leading visionary and only original member, is suffering from a hand injury called Dupuytren’s contracture that will eventually claim his singular ability, so Megadeth might be the last album the guitar god is ever capable of making. For a career that can be symbolized by Mustaine’s fascination with ellipses, both textual (So Far, So Good…So What!) and musical (those guitar solos…), it’s too bad that his final statement amounts to the terse utility of a single period.

If you’re going into the 17th Megadeth album expecting fresh perspectives and guitarwork that goes toe-to-toe with the brilliantly imaginative riffs that Mustaine laid down half a lifetime ago, that’s a skill issue. Bands in Megadeth’s grandad age bracket—Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, even Metallica—make new albums for the same reason that people re-register their cars: to prove they’re still functionally fit for the road. Opener “Tipping Point” earns the green light in that regard, a brisk and bludgeoning thrash jaunt that begins with a torrential solo raining down from Mustaine’s fretboard. The 64 year old vamps for the doubters once again on “Let There Be Shred,” a lighthearted blitz that revisits the meta posturing and tongue-in-cheek silliness of thrash’s foundational texts. And on the midtempo “Puppet Parade,” Mustaine dons his grizzled spoken-word cadence in a pointed nod to all-timers like “Peace Sells” and “Symphony of Destruction.”

Megadeth proves that Megadeth can still do the thing, but it’s missing the communal gravitas of a band’s last hurrah. Megadeth have endured more personnel changes than any other thrash institution, and while Mustaine has firmly maintained the spotlight, the band’s greatest feats have always been a team effort. He’s never had a lineup as creatively inspired as the early-’90s ensemble responsible for the nimble riffs, jaw-dropping solos, and slugging prog-jazz grooves of Rust in Peace and Countdown to Extinction, which is why nothing on Megadeth comes anywhere close to those highs. His current hired guns get the job done, but without decades of camaraderie behind them, their recorded chemistry sounds bland and inflexible. Plus, it’s a little disappointing that Megadeth’s tastiest solos are handled by Temu Dave Mustaine, a guitarist literally named Teemu Mäntysaari who’s never appeared on a Megadeth record before this one.

Nevertheless, Mustaine’s leadership ensures that Megadeth has all the hallmarks of a competently forgettable Megadeth album. His lyrics are the usual fare: vaguely critical ruminations on war and conflict that never surpass a ninth-grade level of boyish intrigue with industrial murder. When he does seek inspiration beyond the writings of Sun Tzu, he’s unloading a barrage of non sequiturs with the sophomorically bratty tone of AJ Soprano (“I Don’t Care”) or dimming the lights and reflecting earnestly on the twilight of his career. Closing cut “The Last Note” ends with Mustaine reciting the phrase, “I came, I ruled, now I disappear,” which would actually be a pretty badass way to go out if it was indeed the album’s final note.

Mustaine has so much to be proud of, both personally and professionally, that no amount of late-career mediocrity can possibly take away his gilded status as thrash-metal’s tenacious anti-hero. On top of Megadeth’s Grammy accolades and double-platinum record sales, Mustaine beat throat cancer in 2019, holds black belts in taekwondo and karate, and owns a successful winemaking business with his wife and daughter. But none of those achievements have filled the Four Horsemen-sized hole in his heart that the other, more successful metal band he co-founded ripped open when they sent him packing in 1983.

All of those years of seething animus have led up to Megadeth’s recorded repertoire ending with a perfectly fine, perfectly unnecessary cover of Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning,” a song Mustaine co-wrote with his former bandmates that was only released after he’d been booted. In context of all the hilariously bitchy and awkwardly deferential comments Mustaine has made about Metallica in recent years, this choice of a bonus track initially struck me as a desperate troll. However, upon further consideration, covering “Ride the Lightning” might actually be the most fitting, full-circle finale for Megadeth. It’s Mustaine’s way of reaffirming what’s been animating his revenge-born band from the jump: At the end of the day, he’d rather just be playing in Metallica.