The Low Down
Covered In Black is a tribute album to AC/DC, the legendary hard rock giants from Down Under, but with an interesting twist. All the bands are representative of the industrial music community instead of hard rock or heavy metal disciples one would come to expect paying homage to the Aussie superstars. Since the majority of these interpretations stray from the blues-influenced hard rock, it's likely that traditional fans of AC/DC will not like this album. However, industrial music fans may enjoy these excursions by a few of this genre's elite.

The Up High
I picked up this CD shortly after it was released in 1997 mainly because I'm a big fan of a couple of the artists featured. Initially, I was really only interested in acquiring more material by them even if it meant throwing down 15 bills. But I'm also a fan of AC/DC having spent my early years listening to album oriented rock on the FM dial and procuring a few of their albums over the years. But I'm certainly no hardcore follower of the band by any means. It's probably a good thing because if I were, I'd probably hate this disc since many of these bands take some serious liberties with the source material.

Covered In Black - An Industrial Tribute To The Kings Of High Voltage AC/DC was released by Cleopatra Records as a part of their ongoing series of industrial-tinged tributes. Cleopatra jumped on the tribute bandwagon back in 1995 when they released A Saucerful Of Pink (a tribute to Pink Floyd). Since then they've produced several similar tributes for the likes of Prince, U2 and The Cure, to name a few. Clocking in over 67 minutes, Covered In Black has 14 tracks each with a different take on AC/DC's back catalog.

Since I already know the songs, the question becomes whether or not I can stomach these modern machined versions of the hard rock classics from which they were derived. Fortunately I can. And it sits well in my belly. Not all the tracks are outstanding, but there's definitely some highlights worth discussing.

The Tracks
The most interesting tracks on Covered In Black are the ones that deviant the most from the original material. Spahn Ranch lends their cold mechanized style to "Shot Down In Flames" creating a wholly different song than the one featured on AC/DC's 1979 Highway To Hell. Pigface vs. Sheep On Drugs (two separate outfits collaborating) provide the most unusual outing with their electronic reggae-esque jigsaw version of "Back In Black." Besides the words in the title, the lyrics aren't even touched; I can see this one making AC/DC fans cringe the most.

Birmingham 6 convert Angus Young's peppy guitar riffs into synthesizers in "Thunder Struck" that otherwise adheres to original composition. "Hells Bells" is completely re-invented by Razed In Black who turn this popular track into a dark wave adventure full of moody percussion and keyboards. Psychopomps do a number on "Badlands" by cranking up the saturation and filtering the vocals resulting in a solid old school industrial overture.

Speaking of old school industrial, Klute re-creates "The Furor" into a captivating dance floor track with bouncing electronic beats. This is one of my favorites not only because of how Klute approached the tune but also because they chose to take on a lessor known AC/DC song from the Ballbreaker album. En Esch from KMFDM joins Terminal Sect to deconstruct the hit "Who Made Who" transforming the pop melody into bright keyboards and crunchy guitar rhythms with a slight KMFDM flavor.

Sister Machine Gun plays it safe on "TNT" with a nearly faithful reproduction of the original as do Electric Hellfire Club and Genitorturers on "Highway To Hell" and "Squealer" respectively. Last on the album is 16 Volt's superchunk rendition of "Dirty Deeds," one of my all-time favorite AC/DC tunes. The version here is done more in a heavy metal style than industrial.

The tracks that don't do much for me are Die Krupps' overblown "It's A Long Way To The Top" which sounds just like a bad bar room cover band effort. Godflesh slows "For Those About To Rock" into a plodding bore and Joined At The Head tries to be too much like AC/DC in their cover of "Whole Lotta Rosie." If I wanted AC/DC, I'd listen to the real thing.

The Down Below
When I was looking up new music on Amazon.com, I stumbled upon the comments people left about Covered In Black and it was fairly evident that the AC/DC diehards do not like this disc. Understandable. If you don't enjoy industrial music or what it has to offer, than this isn't the album for you. But if you're like me and have expanded your musical horizons to include industrial and all its facets (EBM, cold wave, techno, et al.), and you're a fan of classic hard rock, you may find yourself enjoying Covered In Black as much as I have. I recommend this disc but not for the AC/DC faithful. Cheers!

Track Listing:
1. Highway To Hell by The Electric Hellfire Club
2. Squealer by Genitorturers
3. It's a Long Way to the Top by Die Krupps
4. Shot Down in Flames by Spahn Ranch
5. For Those About To Rock by Godflesh
6. Whole Lotta Rosie by Joined At The Head
7. Back In Black by Pigface vs. Sheep On Drugs
8. Thunder Struck by Birmingham 6
9. Hells Bells by Razed In Black
10. Badlands by Psychopomps
11. The Furor by Klute
12. Who Made Who by Terminal Sect w/En Esch (of KMFDM)
13. TNT by Sister Machine Gun
14. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap by 16 Volt




Recommended: Yes