TOP FIVE COVERS THAT GO HARDER THAN THE ORIGINAL

It’s covers season over here at The Angels’ Share, and who doesn’t love covers, or at least love to debate them? There are loads of good covers out there (and a fair few covers that are better than the original), but what I really wanted to look at here were bands and artists who took the original and decided to ratchet things up in their cover version (in some of the below cases quite a bit). In brainstorming this list, I quickly realized I had an embarrassment of riches to choose from. As you’ll see, I have a pretty robust honorable mentions section, and I could’ve easily also included the iconic "Faith" cover by Limp Bizkit, The Ghost Inside’s rendition of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s "Fortunate Son," Century’s "Kiss from a Rose," Cancer Bats’ "Sabotage," or any number of Coalesce’s Led Zeppelin covers, among many others. Having said that, here are the songs I settled on for honorable mentions and then the Top Five itself:

Honorable Mentions

Poppy-"Spit"

Poppy just went completely off on this cover of Kittie’s "Spit," adding an unhinged element that really takes this song to another level. It almost has a Slipknot-"Eyeless" kind of vibe.

Dead Swans-"When You Sleep"

Dead Swans’ My Bloody Valentine cover keeps the dreamy vibe of the original, but whereas My Bloody Valentine’s original is more melancholy, this cover is tortured and anguished, leaving the listener with what is ultimately a much more haunting version. This cover will always remind me of my train ride from Manchester to York when I landed in the UK in 2009 for my first of two stints in the country, as I listened to it on repeat most of the way.

Bitter End-"Conversations with Death"

Put succinctly, the boys in Bitter End prove that the traditional folk song "O, Death" is perfectly suited to—is indeed better suited to—its new life, if you’ll pardon the bad pun, as a hardcore song.

August Burns Red-"…Baby One More Time"

August Burns Red has given us plenty of cover options to choose from over the years, tackling everything from Christmas songs to emo, but I went with their Britney Spears cover because I think the band did such an outstanding job "translating" the original into this full-band version and in executing it in such a way that simultaneously preserves the integrity of the original while making it wholly their own; the melodic elements, much as they do across August Burns Red’s discography, give the heaviness an added punch.

A Day to Remember-"Over My Head (Cable Car)"

I mean, putting a huge breakdown in a song by The Fray alone automatically put this cover in contention for list inclusion, but beyond that, it’s the counter-balancing with vocalist Jeremy McKinnon’s clean singing and the more faithful-to-the-original parts that accentuate when the band does go heavy.

T-Pain-"War Pigs"

Okay, maybe this version doesn’t necessarily go harder than the original, but I would argue that it’s actually eerier, so I decided to get a little flexible and include it on this list. T-Pain puts his own definitive spin on the track, keeping the essential template and the driving force of the original while almost leap-frogging Black Sabbath altogether back into some of their influences, accentuating and further teasing out its groove and covering it in hazy synths, making the song feel like some kind of twisted gospel performance. It’s a wild ride.

Top Five

5. Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!-"We R Who We R"

I could’ve just as easily included their Smash Mouth-"All Star" cover, but I like this one better. The French easycore titans do Ke$ha in all the right ways—and ways that are totally organic to their sound—and though it’s not a prerequisite for inclusion on this list, as we’ve seen, throwing a massive breakdown in there is a surefire way to go straight to my heart.

4. Orgy-"Blue Monday"

I love New Order as much as the next guy, but tell me "Blue Monday" wasn’t meant to be an industrial rock/nü metal song. The Orgy version has a driving quality and extra punch that really elevates it. Orgy also gets bonus points for being the first non-concert in the park show I ever attended when my dad took me at age ten to see them at The Asylum in Portland, Maine, not long after the release of Candyass.

3. This Is Hell-"Fight For Your Right"

Great band giving the Long Island hardcore tribute to hip-hop legends the Beastie Boys, who many don’t know actually started out doing hardcore of their own, a kind of Bad Brains worship (BB—Beastie Boys, Bad Brains, get it?). In fact, the Beastie Boys may well have invented the blast beat. At any rate, this juiced-up version brings out the best of the source material.

2. Electric Callboy-"Everytime We Touch"

I talked about this song here, but to recap: given the heavy incorporation of Europop into the Electric Callboy sound, paying tribute to fellow Germans Cascada makes perfect sense, and yes, it does go quite hard; as we’ve seen earlier, though, this effect is enhanced by the contrast with the parts where the band "plays it straight" and stays largely faithful to the original.

1. Awaken Demons-"Here Comes the Hot (2) Stepper"

I mean come on. "Italy’s hardest" doing a metallic Trustkill-style hardcore version of Ini Kamoze’s "Here Comes the Hotstepper"? Yes, please! Everything from the "Nah, na-na-na-nah (etc)" gang vocals to the absolutely nasty breakdown with those panic chords and "murderer!" howled over the top is just so on point. I listen to this cover constantly; it’s true perfection.