Top Ten of epicness

You can't beat a good cover version. A band takes a classic song, redoes it, and occasionally makes it something spectacular - Pantera's cover of Black Sabbath's Planet Caravan is one of the greatest things I've ever heard, and Type O Negative's version of Summer Breeze by Seals and Crofts (or The Isley Brothers) is one of the most exquisitely depressing covers known to man. But today I'm celebrating those covers song that are completely inappropriate, mindless and fucking funny.

Props to brit metallers and thoroughly decent chaps Sa-Da-Ko for inspiring this list with this their most recent and retarded outing; a cover of DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Boom Shake The Room. Brilliant.

10. Snuff - Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads

Punk legends Snuff Oi-up the 1970s comedy show theme tune. Try and listen to the last few half-beat bars without donning bovver boots, downing a bottle of Newcastle Brown and smashing it on your head

9. Lagwagon - Bad Moon Rising

Basically exactly the same as the Creedance Clearwater Revival original, with the exception of a cripplingly fast chorus that back in the day made this budding teenage drummer's balls tighten.

8. The Bezerker - All The Things She Said

Technically, T.A.T.U's original was all about a video of them dressed as schoolgirls and lezzing up in the rain. Pretty much a winning idea. Until The Bezerker added impossibly fast double kick and substituted vulnerable, questionably-legal teenagers with a PVC'd dominatrix couple.

7. Lawnmower Deth - Kids In America

If Kim Wilde's original wasn't awesome enough, the British legends give it a comedy metal makeover. Indescribably awesome.

6. Ten Masked Men - Cry Me A River

Internet legends Ten Masked Men have metalled up everything from Christina Aguilera to Eiffel 65 but their cover of Justin Timberlake's whinging opus about losing tragic psychopath Britney Spears is a stroke of genius.

5. Austrian Death Machine - T2 Theme

As I Lay Dying's Tim Lambesis drops a bit of a bollock here as technically, this theme is from the end of the first Terminator but nevertheless, adding chugging riffs and soaring fretwork to one of the most seminal pieces of music from 20th century cinema (well, I think so anyway) is a stroke of genius

4. Me First & The Gimme Gimmes - Mandy

With a massive back catalogue to choose from, the punk supergroup could have a top ten of their own but in my mind, punking up Manilow is always a winner.

3. NOFX - Vincent

Don Maclean's tribute to earless Absinthe mentaller Vincent Van Gogh gets the SoCal treatment. Fat Mike's nasal squawk and Erik Sandin's trademark drumming takes a somber, down beat song and makes it a pit-swelling anthem

2. Turisas - Rasputin

Take Boney-M, add folk metal, et voila. I almost pissed myself when I first saw this live as it's such a perfectly retarded song to cover. However, Turisas do it so well you'd think they themselves had penned this tribute to Russia's greatest love machine.

1. Hi-Standard - California Dreamin'

Without doubt, my favourite stupid cover of all time. Nothing pays tribute to the mid-1960s anthem more than this double-quick version by a group of Japanese punks. It's a moment of pure genius and a hands down winner.

Ah, that was fun. Time to go and pull a moonie at the pope.

Ciao

M

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Brutality and goats

Metal is a funny old thing. To the general public, 'metal' is quite simply 'heavy metal'. Only those in the know or sad losers like me have even an inkling of sludge, grind, death, groove, thrash, black, goregrind, mathcore, pornogrind, folk, and so on and so forth. But this week even I was taken aback by goatgrind. I mean, there are some fucked up genres of music in this world but listening to Milking The Goatmachine's Back From The Goats really took things to a new level. They're not wholly serious, as you would imagine but the music is savagely heavy and I can see them developing quite a following amongst the underground mentallists of the metal scene. I reviewed the album for MetalasFuck so go there if you want to find out more.

At the other end of the metallic spectrum I've been given the opportunity to interview culture-transcending troupe the Brutal Ballet Company. Instead of pink tutus and lace, this collective of lasses from Australia perform traditional ballet dressed in PVC with white contacts and corpse paint, and rather than Tchaikovsky they move to the dulcet tones of Dethklok, performed by a live tribute band. Nice. I can't say too much more at this stage but it got me thinking, what other traditional dance styles could take a metal turn? Could the little bells and bits of wood be replaced by animal bones and weighty clubs for Viking Metal Morris Dancing? Could the flowing dresses and tight leather trousers be replaced by lacy basques and spiked chaps for Norwegian Death Salsa? The opportunities are truly endless.

In other news I've been completely overawed by ChthoniC this week, particularly the immensely dark and uncompromisingly heavy 49 Theurgy Chains. The Taiwanese quintet play some of the darkest, heaviest black metal I've heard for fucking ages so any fans of the genre should click on the link in my list and check them out. They combine the nastiness of the Scandinavian sound with the use of traditional Taiwanese instruments, which produces shit hot results. I think the name is meant to be pronounced like 'sonic' but I have no fucking idea. All I know are there are yet another example of insane noisemakers from the Far Eastern part of this lowly planet. Girly trio Gallhammer produce some horrendous heaviness, and Dir En Grey take the insanity of Rammstein and versatility of Slipknot or Nine Inch Nails to produce absolutely epic works. And let's not forget Fat Wreck Chord's finest Hi-Standard - their cover of California Dreamin' is still one of my favourite covers of all time. If you haven't heard it, you have an enormous hole in your life.

Now to create more brutal subgenres of metal. Keep your eyes peeled for banjogrind...

M
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