I really like covers. Those of you who read all my reviews must have noticed it. Here I have a full album of Metallica covers done by acts such as Therion, Dark Tranquility and In Flames to name the bands that I really appreciate, but also from other bands such as Primal Fear, Anthrax, Destruction, Sonata Artica and Sinner to name the most well-known bands.

Nuclear Blast is the champion of the tribute albums. For instance, they have released tribute albums to Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Scorpions and Accept (2). They even have released a tribute to ABBA. I have three complaints about their tribute albums. First of all, their tribute albums include mostly bands from their own catalogue, so you will more or less find the same bands on all of their tribute albums. Secondly, they don’t ask their bands to go into the studio and record songs during the same period of time, but rather gather collections of cover tunes recorded over the years, so you most of the time have covers on the same album with diverse quality of sound. Thirdly, record companies have the unpleasant habit of putting bands on these compilations that don’t follow the same musical trend, either power metal, death metal or black metal, which makes it hard for anyone to enjoy the tribute. Besides, in order to fully appreciate a cover, one has to like the bands that do the cover, and also like the band being covered. As for myself, I am totally not interested in a Twisted Sister tribute album, but on the other hand I will do anything to find the songs done by Cradle Of Filth or Dimmu Borgir.

On this Nuclear Blast tribute to Metallica I have found some great stuff. I’ll start with the Primal Fear cover of Seek & Destroy. Although I really don’t care about Primal Fear, I have to admit that their Seek & Destroy cover, although true to the original, is really great. Then you’ll have Dark Tranquility doing a great cover of My Friend Of Misery, doing it their own way and really giving a new dimension to this incredible song. In Flames comes up with a great version of Eye Of The Beholder. I was not really surprised how their own interpretation of those Metallica classics turned out since they both are great bands with a great following from fans from all kinds of metal styles.

There’s a bunch of bands that come up with average versions of their Metallica visions. Geriatric thrasher Anthrax come up with a decent cover of Phantom Lord, but since the band started out at the same time as Metallica I honestly would have seen them proposing another cover that wasn’t so close to their own repetoire. Sonata Artica, (never heard anything from them by the way), has a very good version of Fade To Black, although their vocalist doesn’t sound interesting to me, but it couldn’t have been any different with such as great song. German young death metallers Burden Of Grief have chosen Master Of Puppets and they have quite succeeded in paying tribute to this awesome song. Crematory’s shorter version of One is really interesting since they come up with a rather interesting new approach.

Some of the bands featured on this tribute should have thought twice before covering such a band as Metallica. What’s to say about the poor version of Fight Fire With Fire from Therion ? A true disappointment since I expected the band to give its own personal interpretation of this song or rather chose a different one, but unfortunately they just play it the boring typical death metal way. Well, they might have recorded it back in 1990 anyway. Surfin’ on the revival thrash metal wave German losers Destruction lost themselves with a typical thrash orientated version of Whiplash. What a waste of money and time. The Thing That Should Not Be is certainly not the greatest entertaining Metallica song, but I know a band from Norway called The Sins Of Thy Beloved that came up with a far better interpretation than Primus who may have just taken five minutes to record it. I will deliberately skip Die Krupps’s version of Battery which was done in 1993 and Apocalyptica’s version of Harwester Of Sorrow because I don’t want to waste my time with them since they have nothing to do on this tribute, although Apocalyptica did come up with something interesting.

Honestly, this is a review I came up with in about an hour since Nuclear Blast certainly needed less time to come up with this tribute album. I think they could do a lot better and the result would be of a better quality if they asked their top bands such as Dimmu Borgir, The Kovenant, Hammerfall or Children Of Bodom to come up with their own Metallica vision. And by the way where is Cannibal Corpse's interpretation of No Remorse ?