What an odd thing this is. Beatallica, if you haven’t heard of them, is an anonymous re-imagining of Metallica as a Beatles cover band. But it’s not just covers — the classic songs of the Fab Four are actually reworked in to Metallica-friendly thrash-fests, while still maintaining their melodic charm.
Their first “album,” A Garage Dayz Nite, featured such transporter-accident favorites as “…And Justice for All My Loving,” “The Thing That Should Not Let it Be” and “Everybody’s Got a Ticket to Ride Except for Me and My Lightning.” Catchy and clever, all of them. Beatallica (self-titled and gray, a mesh of the Beatles’ “white album” and Metallica’s “black album”) continues this proud tradition with “Sandman” (to the tune of “Taxman”), “Got to Get You Trapped Under Ice” and “Hey Dude.”
They seem to have expanded their scope this go-round — not satisfied to remain the novelty “Metallica/Beatles” act, they actually made some of these songs about things. For instance, “Leper Madonna” works as a combination of “Leper Messiah” from Master of Puppets and “Lady Madonna” from the White Album, but it’s also a scathing indictment of the pop singer Madonna, complete with “what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” sample. (Apparently a number of bogus Madonna MP3s are floating around the internet containing this scold from Queen Skank Herself.) “And I Am Evil” contains a duet with an equally adept impersonation of Lemmy from Motorhead. And “I Wanna Choke Your Band” attacks nearly every one of Metallica’s late-80s poser metal contemporaries, from Warrant to Poison. Great stuff.
This whole thing is so incredibly well done — everything, from the distinct sound of Kirk Hammet’s guitar solos to the unmistakable James Hetfield growl — is duplicated perfectly. If you didn’t know any better, you’d seriously think this was a “lost” Metallica album circa 1987, just prior to the death of Cliff Burton.
There’s only one thing I really don’t get: for all the incredible effort put forth here, it seems like the audience for it must be so narrow. Unless you have a comprehensive knowledge of the complete catalogues of both bands, most of the jokes are lost on you. However, if you have gone through both Metallica and Beatles phases in your life (and I have), this is the most clever and entertaining thing you’ll hear in a long time. Beatallica is worth the price of admission alone (which, incidentally, is free — they’re doing this without permission after all) to hear the opening strains of “Blackened” from …And Justice for All whining out the hook from “Hey Jude.”
This is, in short, destroys the mold for “novelty bands” and, sadly, kicks the ass of anything Metallica has thrown out there for the past several years.