Review of Various Artists - A Tribute To The Four Horsemen

Soon to grace your ears is a tribute to the OTHER (the first being Iron Maiden band that probably got you all into metal, Metallica. Nobody can deny that at one point, Metallica was their life. They were the height of heaviness, the pinnacle of brutality, and the kings of our beloved genre. On this disc, A Tribute to the Four Horsemen, you can kick back and get all nostalgic thinking of a time when hair was long, “file sharing” consisted of swapping audio cassettes, Kirk Hammet wasn’t addicted to the wah-wah pedal, Lars Ulrich could still make a distinction between drums and garbage cans, Cliff Burton was alive and well, and James Hetfield didn’t know the meaning of “clean vocals”. The track by track review: Primal Fear does a killer rendition of “Seek and Destroy” in a style all their own. For those of you who try and deny the singing prowess of Ralf Scheepers should take note of this cover, it’s done quite well. “Fight Fire with Fire” is done by Therion, a band I’ve never paid much attention to. I’m not sure if they normally don’t do clean vocals, but there are some very good non-clean vocals here, especially at the end when they repeat the song title a few times. Destruction plays a badass version of “Whiplash” in a way that only Destruction can. They even include the line “we’re NOT Metallica” in place of the original, which was excellent. Anthrax does a decent “Phantom Lord”. It sounds somewhat stale for some reason, even though I enjoy it more than Metallica’s original. In a very interesting cover, Sonata Arctica covers “Fade to Black”. I never realized this was a power metal song! It plays surprisingly well, their vocalist does a superb job with his duties. The trademark musicianship of the band makes this one silky-smooth. Everyone’s favorite Metallica song, “Master of Puppets”, is done by Burden of Grief. It’s done pretty much verbatim, with the exception of some thrashy non-clean vocals. Possibly one of the best covers I’ve heard is Dark Tranquillity’s version of “My Friend of Misery”. They couldn’t have picked a better song for their style, it sounds perfect. I’d say it’s one of my favorite covers on the CD. The hit-or-miss “One” is played next by Crematory. The great thing about this cover is the fact that they improved the song, making it light-years better than Metallica’s version! Not only do they add keyboards to the perfect points and great non-clean vocals for the refrains, but they drastically cut down on the bloated length of the song to a lean four minutes or so. It’s my favorite track on this disc, definitely a hit. In an odd sounding cover, In Flames covers “Eye of the Beholder”. The odd thing is that it sounds more like Anthrax than In Flames. Otherwise, it’s a somewhat boring song played somewhat boringly. A proggy version of “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” is pulled off by Thunderstone. Good musicianship makes for a nice sounding cover to an oft-overlooked song. Definitely the weirdest cover on the album is executed by The Kovenant. In an extremely stylized version of “The Memory Remains”, they actually manage to make this song sound cool. This tribute album is almost worth buying for this song alone, as it’s so unique and an unconventional choice. Sinner plays a painfully awkward “Wherever I May Roam”. Musically it’s fine, but the vocals just aren’t suited to the song and it comes off as somewhat of a failure. Tankard stylishly closes out the album with the quintessential album-ender, “Damage Inc.”. I love the original, but the Tankard version sounds somewhat watered down. While it’s a good cover, it lacks the unbridled lightspeed quality of the original, espeically at my favorite point (the solo after the line “you’ll know just where we come from”). While now they are hardly worthy of a tribute, you still must recognize the fact that Metallica used to be incredible. It's hard to remember a time in which lyrics like “Following our instinct not a trend, Go against the grain until the end” were sincere, but A Tribute to the Four Horsemen might give you a little taste of those long-forgotten days. This is a great collection of covers, worthy of your collection.

Release Details

Various Artists

A Tribute To The Four Horsemen

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