ECW Extreme Music

(Slab/CMC)
by Scott Hefflon

Fifty minutes of great heavy music (or at least what the masses might consider extreme) by a few new metal faves and some veterans of the crunch. ECW Extreme Music is predominantly covers of well-known songs, yet versions you’ve probably never heard before. And that alone makes this worth the price of admission. There’re plenty of ECW merchandise offers and mug shots (sorry, head shots) of all yer favorite long-haired, greased-up, muscle-bound guys in tights. Opening and closing ECW Extreme Music are a coupla theme songs I don’t recognize cuz I seem to be in the metal-loving minority that find watching beefcakes roll around on the mat a little too similar to gay porn. Tracks: White Zombie doing a remixed original, Kilgore covering Pantera’s “Walk,” Megadeth doing an instrumental version of their own “Trust,” Bruce Dickinson covering the Scorpions classic “The Zoo,” Motörhead covering Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” Grinspoon covering Prong’s “Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck,” Anthrax covering Metallica’s “Phantom Lord,” Tres Diablos (featuring everyone in Pantera but Phil) covering ZZ Top’s “Heard It On The X,” Monster Magnet covering MC5’s “Kick Out The Jams,” and Muscadine covering AC/DC’s “Big Balls.” While a few of the songs fall far shy of the originals, it’s kinda cool to hear mediocre interpretations to remind you how great the originals were and still are. Also kinda interesting is that, honestly, none of these songs are actually extreme, nor are the bands covering them, and the bleeping out any “F’N” foul language is not exactly what most of us would call extreme.
(5226 Greens Dairy Rd Raleigh, NC 27616)