Comments

  1. rq says

    Please define term: silence.
    Otherwise, a lovely version. I’m still partial to the original, but as cover versions go, this one ain’t bad at all.

  2. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    The original was prevalent back during my college days. This is just as powerful in its own vision.
    *raised tankard of grog in salute*

  3. says

    rq @ 1:

    I’m still partial to the original, but as cover versions go, this one ain’t bad at all.

    I prefer Disturbed’s cover. Powerful, much like silence.

  4. says

    That’s what I’ve always said: Paul Simon f*ing ROCKS!
    This version is both surprising and awesome, I might have to reconsider some of my opinions of the metal-genre.

  5. blf says

    That was heavy metal? I admit it had the mouse hovering over the “Close” button and my finger ready when it first started, as I was expecting a preconceived notion of “the usual”…

    This is nice and creative rendition. Claps, and then goes back to quaffing.

  6. auntbenjy says

    Slightly different, but I thought I’d leave this here…Shinedown cover of Adele’s “Someone Like You”. :)

  7. unclefrogy says

    I liked the musical part as a good rendition but the words and the sense of the song are completely urban and in particular New York. The words to me speak of the waste land of Time Square and with the graffiti on the walls put there by those who are powerless and dispossessed I see no wild woods at all.
    uncle frogy

  8. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    One of the best lines from that song (in my opinion) is people hearing without listening
    seems quite relevant to this blog where many read the words without reading the meaning of the words. (the visual (literal? literally) version of hearing&listening)

  9. dorght says

    I listened I really liked. The lower key(?) and intensity add so much to the song over the S&G version. Plus in retrospect it is a bit weird to sing in harmony about “In restless dreams I walked alone…”

  10. Duckbilled Platypus says

    Huh. Heavy metal’s really changed since I was a kid.

    Nothing of the sort. It’s a flexible genre, and like any other genre, musicians like to step outside their confinements for a bit and pay tribute to their big examples. Metal has been playing covers for ages, and not just covers from other metal songs. And sometimes, the outcome is, to say the least, very much unlike everything else they do, and it can be very agreeable indeed. Two of my favorites here.

    I’m no fan of Wargasm, but on one occasion they switched off distortion and immediately made something sweet:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_wVe3xIG7o

    Dream Theater once did half a concert full of their beloved songs, without resorting to overdrive.

  11. Duckbilled Platypus says

    … I meant to post links rather than inline videos, but the second got autoconverted to inline video (it didn’t do this in the preview). Sorry ’bout that.

  12. Duckbilled Platypus says

    And damnit, the video also lost the time frame. Skip that video to the 23rd minute.

  13. blf says

    Speaking of musical pieces in a genre that you might not expect, I remember the first time I head Sly & Robbie’s reggae take on the theme from Mission Impossible (this was long before any of the movies): I had recently purchased the cassette tape and was listening to it as I was driving, when suddenly the piece came on. I was so startled I pulled over to the side of the road to give it a listen — and make sure I wasn’t hallucinating or something !

  14. microraptor says

    Never really got into this band too much. I prefer bands like The Pretty Reckless, Sister Sin, or Mastodon.

  15. says

    I’d say it’s more “orchestral metal” if that.
    I don’t really like labelling musicians; I’m somewhat OK with labelling songs because the resolution is finer.

    That was good stuff. But I think Garfunkel’s ethereal voice works better.

    Speaking of Lemmy; I’d love to hear his cover of “the sound of silence” except silence was not what he was about. In his honor, I drank the first thing I could get my hands on that had alcohol in it. Goodbye, Lemmy!! You rocked!

  16. blf says

    Hum… Other artistes who I’d like to hear their take on The Sound of Silence: The first one that comes to mind by name is Shane MacGowan (most famously of The Pogues). I can imagine some opera performers could give interesting renditions as well.

  17. DanDare says

    That blew me away. I always like the S&G song but this reinterpretation gets right to the core and left me stunned. My new inspiration for 2016.

  18. WhiteHatLurker says

    I prefer the original, but it is a nice cover.

    I listened to a few of the other videos linked through the first video. I am not a metal fan, but listen to it from time to time. I’m not sure that I’d class this band as being in the “mainstream” of metal. (Oh, and check out their “Land of Confusion” video.)

  19. says

    WhiteHatLurker, I think it is safe to say that Disturbed is pretty much considered mainstream metal.

    I personally love their stuff, and think this cover is great. It is well worth checking out their lyrics, as they actually usually have a message (e.g. in Another Way to Die

  20. peterh says

    Also in the vein of “you perhaps weren’t expecting this,” there’s Apocalyptica’s version of Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters. Sorry no link, but YouTube search will bring it up.

    As an aside, how/when did version/interpretation become cover?

  21. Ray, rude-ass yankee SJW "Bwaahahahaha!" says

    As blf @24 alluded to, it seemed like a very operatic version rather than straight up metal, to me. Interesting and well done.

  22. John Morales says

    Ray:

    Interesting and well done.

    Other than missing the very point of urban alienation, I suppose so.

    (Song was better than the video, IMO, so I second unclefrogy above)

  23. deannajoylyons says

    This is one of my favorite covers. What a gorgeous rendition! The orchestral backdrop is lovely and the singer has all the power and range you could hope for to make it work very damn damn well.

  24. says

    I’ve always been fond of Disturbed, though I’m willing to admit they’re not the most adventurous. I love the Sound of Silence, and I genuinely couldn’t choose between this and the original. I’m glad of both, really.

    Metal is often dismissed, but the vocalists and musicians can be tremendously skilled, especially when compared to other genres. The best example of this is probably Dio, who had a stronger, more capable voice than your average opera singer.

    I was terribly sad to hear about Lemmy. He will be missed.

  25. redwood says

    What a great voice he has! I thought the orchestration got a little too big by the end, but I realized that was leading up to the dramatic cutoff. Hard-rock/heavy metal bands doing slow songs can be quite good. One of my all-time favorite songs is a ballad by Black Sabbath called Solitude (off the Master of Reality album).

  26. Artor says

    Very nice! Thanks for sharing. SoS has long been among my favorite songs, and this was a very good treatment of it. I would point out that this was a heavy metal singer, making a not-heavy-metal performance. As we all know, Jethro Tull’s work is the real heavy metal music!

  27. spamamander, internet amphibian says

    I’m a big Disturbed fan, but was completely prepared to hate this cover. Until I heard it. Draiman sounds amazing and it’s extremely powerful.

    Another issue song: Never Again, about the Holocaust and refusing to allow the stage to be set for those atrocities again. (David Draiman is Jewish.) It may be “mall metal” but they put on a hell of a good show. It was the first concert I took my oldest daughter to- and they came back from hiatus just in time for she and I to take my youngest to for HIS first concert.

  28. consciousness razor says

    Kinda failing to see how this can be considered metal.

    Same here. Apparently, the thinking is that a band just is a metal band, so whatever they do must be metal as well. Seems silly, but maybe people are being silly, or to put it more politely they don’t have better analytical tools at their disposal besides these obviously broken ones. Thing is, I don’t actually give a shit about genres or labels — I guess this is more evidence of how useless they can be — but I wouldn’t have said the dude’s sort of rough vocal timbre toward the end is nearly enough to do it, although if the “metal” label is going to be used in such an all-encompassing way I’ll try to be less surprised by it next time…. (If not his voice, then I’m at a loss figuring out what else I’m supposed to listen for, which would help to determine its metallicity, however heavy it may or may not be, because I really don’t hear it, perhaps because there’s nothing in the music to listen for regarding this distinction.) That is, it’s not enough, unless somehow by this standard Simon & Garfunkel themselves were also playing metal, perhaps even deemed as such retroactively, but I don’t think I can fully wrap my head around that.

  29. gmacs says

    Another issue song: Never Again, about the Holocaust and refusing to allow the stage to be set for those atrocities again.

    Unless of course it’s carried out in the name of Israel (David Draiman is an unconditional apologist for IDF and Israeli occupation). I was actually a really big fan of Disturbed, and so I was really disappointed to find out how far right Draiman is. He’s also kinda racist: while accusing others of antisemitism, he called Trevor Noah a “Mamzer”, a racist reference to Noah’s being born mixed-race during Apartheid.

  30. gmacs says

    @46
    Source

    Draiman portrays any critic of Israel as antisemitic, and talks about being from a non-violent culture a few sentences after threatening another person with violence.

    Sorry to ruin the fun, but hearing about that “Never Again” song, I couldn’t ignore the hypocrisy.