Heavy metal and country aren’t necessarily two genres that go together traditionally, but don’t tell Metallica that.
For the 30 year anniversary of The Black Album, the band will be releasing a cover album featuring 53 different artists. In the country world, Jason Isbell, Darius Rucker, Chris Stapleton, Jon Pardi, and Mickey Guyton are included on this record.
And today, we’re gifted with Jason Isbell’s cover of their 1993 single, “Sad But True,” and man, is it a badass take on this song
Instead of the heavy drums, which is synonymous with heavy metal, we hear some swampy slide guitar and a boot stompin’ bluesy feel, quite the departure from the spirit of the original. In not so shocking fashion, Jason Isbell who turns everything he touches into gold, made this his own and it WORKED.
I mean, he absolutely knocked it out of the park and I think if he tried to replicate it closer to the Metallica original, it wouldn’t be nearly as effective as a cover.
The full album of covers will be released on September 10th, but for now, we will just have to have this one on repeat as we anticipate Blacklist’s release.
Here’s the original song for reference:
