Wham, bam, thank you m’am
Anyone who has seen Alice Cooper play live recently will have seen his homage to what he calls his “dead good friends”.
Four songs, The Who, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix and Motorhead, one after the other as Coop pays homage.
This, from supergroup, Metal Allegiance is something similar.
Three tracks, all to commemorate those we lost at the arse end of last year and the start of 2016. Legends don’t get much bigger than Lemmy, Bowie and Glenn Frey – and to take on their songs you probably need an ego the size of MV’s living room.
Luckily, such chutzpah isn’t a problem when you are Testament guitar god Alex Skolnick, drum king Mike Portnoy and bassist Mark Menghi.
And the list of vocalists on this little three tracker ain’t so bad either. Troy Sanders of Mastodon, Mark Osegueda of Death Angel and Arch Enemy singer Alissa White-Gluz wrap themselves around the trio of tracks here and my, what a job they do!
Sanders gargles gravel on a testosterone-fuelled piece take on “Iron Fist”, which sounds more polished than the original, perhaps, but stays just right side of filthy.
“Suffragette City” might have been at the strutting end of Bowie’s material anyway, but Osegueda absolutely nails the souped-up version here, like an out of control muscle car and twice as dangerous, he pulls something out of the song – and from himself – that you weren’t quite sure was there.
It is, however, “Life In The Fast Line” that really takes the honours here. The Eagles rule, that’s just a fact, so to turn it into a thumping, driving hard rock song is particularly impressive. That’s what happens though and White-Gulz evidently throws herself into it all with something approaching abandon.
Covers EP’s are generally, to be honest, a little bit pointless. “Fallen Heroes” is one of the best. The versions here are way more than mere copies and this confident, classy work is actually a fitting tribute to the three we lost.
You can pay it no higher praise than that.
Rating 8/10
