CoC : Various - ECW Extreme Music : Review

Various - _ECW Extreme Music_
(Earache, 1999)
by: Paul Schwarz (3 out of 10)

This is a compilation of extreme music tracks chosen to musically represent Extreme Championship Wrestling. Harry Slash and the Slashtones' "This Is Extreme" provides an intro, and a boring one, of sorts to this comp. It is followed by a remix of White Zombie's "El Phantasmo and the Chicken Run Blast-O-Rama" which is nearly the same as the original, and, additionally, tedious in the extreme (sic). This record contains a virtual plethora of covers, and I will tackle these collectively and comparatively now. Kilgore, Motorhead and Anthrax all, in my opinion, chose very poorly the covers they were to contribute. "Walk" by Pantera and "Enter Sandman" and "Phantom Lord" by Metallica are their respective contributions and, in my view, there is a lot wrong with the mere principle of these bands doing their chosen covers. In Kilgore's case, no-one should be covering a seven year old tune by a huge-selling band, and you certainly shouldn't be covering what is probably their most popular song. The cover adds nothing to the original -- which is hardly a classic in itself, it just happens to be a song a lot of people can get into. Motorhead should not be covering Metallica in my view, and I'd certainly say that, again, the most overplayed and popular song from the band's most successful record is hardly a good choice. Anthrax's error is not as much the choice as the execution. I would have thought the point of covering a really old, cool and heavy Metallica track would be to show up the band's current commercial direction by churning out a ripping version of the track; instead, Anthrax play a competent cover but add nothing in vitriol, heaviness or depth to the original, even though I imagine they have access to way more money and time than Metallica had to do _Kill 'Em All_. The final insult is John Bush's vocals, however, which fit so badly it is almost embarrassing to listen to. What's interesting is that I think if Anthrax and Motorhead had swapped Metallica songs, we would have ended up with a much more satisfactory pair of covers. Bruce Dickinson turns in The Scorpions' "The Zoo", which is not a track I am familiar with. It is a bit tedious but seems decently done. Megadeth's "Trust (ECW mix)" is not dance-beat infused but seems only to be an extended instrumental: it's boring. Tres Diablos is a Pantera offshoot band which I think features all members except Phil Anselmo. Some upfront, Primus-esque bass work makes it somewhat interesting, but overall it is somewhat simplistic and uninteresting, and has sections where the band simply fall back onto Pantera trademark riffs, rather shamefully. Monster Magnet's "Kick Out the Jams" (from the promo-only _Space Lord_ EP) is energetic and worthwhile: probably worth checking out if you're a big Monster Magnet fan. The remaining bands are Earache's own. Morbid Angel's godly "Prayer of Hatred" (from my favourite record of last year, _Formulas Fatal to the Flesh_) is included and Cathedral and Iron Monkey also turn in tracks. The Cathedral track is from their most recent _Caravan Beyond Redemption_ disc and is much better than I had expected out of the band since losing track of them after the tedious _Supernatural Birth Machine_ and patchy _Carnival Bizzarre_ albums. The Iron Monkey track is cool and extreme doom-type stuff which reminds me of Sleep's recent _Jerusalem_ disc. Overall, a lot of unnecessary and boring covers and remixes mean that nothing unreleased from here is worth picking it up for, while its value as a sampler is limited due to the small number of quality album tracks included.

(article published 12/8/1999)

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