1. Still Of The Night (Whitesnake
cover)
2. Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover (Sophie
B. Hawkins cover)
3. I Hate Myself For Loving You (Joan
Jett cover)
4. Heathens (Twenty One Pilots cover)
5. Fell On Black Days (Soundgarden
cover)
6. Ride The Lightning (Metallica
cover)
I really enjoy these cover
EPs. They're a great 'stop-gap' between studio albums, not only giving the fans
something new, but introducing younger fans to some great bands. The choice of
songs is always a diverse mix of Rock and Metal with a curveball or two, and
for me, it's the curveball songs that I enjoy most. On the first Reanimate, there was a superb Hard Rock
cover of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance, and on the second, an equally
cool, rocked up take on Daft Punk's Get Lucky. Other previous highlights were
covers of Skid Row's Slave To The Grind, AC/DC's
Shoot To Thrill, and Guns n' Roses' Out Ta Get Me.
On this third covers EP, Halestorm kick things off with their
version of the Whitesnake classic Still Of The Night. Halestorm's rendition is a little
shorter, and cuts out some of the moody middle section. The song doesn't suffer
for this. Whilst I love the original, it was nice to hear this faithful yet
modern sounding version with some of the fat trimmed off. It's a strong opener
for the EP, and possibly the best Whitesnake
cover I've ever heard.
Next up is the curveball, a
version of Sophie B. Hawkins' pop
classic Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover.
To be honest, I never liked the original song. Halestorm do a good rock version though, and I've found myself
warming to it.
The cover of the Joan Jett classic I Hate Myself For Loving You is much more to my tastes, and Halestorm deliver a faithful, yet no frills
version with a bit more Rock and a little less Glam. The changes they made are
subtle but really effective.
Covering a song from a recent successful
mainstream movie is a clever move. It will ensure plenty of hits on YouTube,
and potentially help the band to reach a wider audience. That's what Halestorm have done here with their
cover of Twenty One Pilots' Heathens. The original was used in last
year's hugely popular Suicide Squad
movie. Their cover is naturally a bit more rocking, but lacks some of the darkness,
and the generally creepy vibe of the original. It's still cool though, and fits
nicely with their repertoire.
The last two are straight up
Hard Rock covers. They sound exactly as I'd expect them to. I really like the Soundgarden cover. The original is my
favourite song from the Superunknown
album, so I was particularly pleased that Halestorm
chose this one. Singing anything originally sang by Chris Cornell is always a risky move as he has such an incredible,
distinctive and unique voice. However Lzzy
Hale tackles this one in style, bringing her own soulful charisma to the
table, and making the song her own.
They finish the EP in style
with a truly killer version of Metallica's
Ride The Lightning. It's heavy and
doesn't lack any of the savagery and precision riffing of the original. I've
heard many Metallica covers by
various bands, and I can't think of one that's anything like as good as this.
To conclude, this is another
really strong covers EP, and shows the diversity of the band's influences as
well as their very high calibre of musicianship. I'm really looking forward to
their next studio album, and hope another covers EP isn't too far behind that.
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