KILLER COVERS || Exmortus: "Appassionata"

Heavy metal covers of classical songs are a dime a dozen, and in the era of Youtube playthrough videos - where complete unknowns, often teenagers, credibly shred their way through one virtuosic metal classic after another - the market seems as unaccomodating as ever for yet another commercially released Beethoven rendition. But Exmortus approach their appreciation for classical music with an energy and showmanship that is often lost on the Yngwie clones who think it's enough to just show up and flex nuts.

Exmortus are touring early this year with a plethora of other old school-sounding young metal bands, including Enforcer, Cauldron and Warbringer.

KILLER COVERS || Built to Spill: "Jokerman"

I can't say that 1983's Infidels was my first exposure to Dylan - I'd probably heard a few of his vintage tunes in passing as my parents partied on the weekends - but MTV used to play the shit out of "Jokerman" and "Sweetheart Like You" so this was the first of the man's material that stuck to my impressionable dome at the time.

I still don't frequently listen to anything else off of the LP except those two tracks, but I've always thought that the record as a whole captured some of Mark Knopfler's most tasteful playing. This Built to Spill cover loses those clean licks but has charms of its own, not the least of which is Doug Martsch's plaintive-yet-enthusiastic singing.

KILLER COVERS || Selebrities: "Everywhere" [feat. Erika Spring & Lissy Trullie]

Been almost a year to the day that I last posted Selebrities. Guess it's about that time then. Just in time for Valentines Day (boooooooooo) they cover the old Christine McVie chestnut "Everywhere" from Fleetwood Mac's Waterloo, the 1987 last-stab-at-top-40-relevance album Tango in the Night. In spite of my snark it's actually pretty underrated in a pure pop sorta way. Assisting with harmony are friends of the band Erika Spring and Lissy Trullie.

Lovely Things is out June 25 on Cascine, who are being rather coy about whether this song will reappear.

(via Gorilla vs Bear)

KILLER COVERS || Jessie Ware: "If You Love Me"

I make no secret of the fact that I've never been the world's biggest consumer of 90's R&B. Post-New Jack Swing I think there was an unwelcome (to me, anyway) shift toward the beat rather than the soul in the music, and as far as I was concerned we already had hip for that shit.

KILLER COVERS || Dum Dum Girls: "Trees and Flowers"

Strawberry Switchblade had one album in 1985, bookended by a small handful of non-LP singles that stretched their oeuvre out from 1983-86. Dum Dum Girls have covered their final single, "Trees and Flowers", on their new End of Daze EP. The EP is largely a collection of material that was recorded for last year's Only in Dreams album but left off for not fitting in with the upbeat, girl group pop sound that the LP represented. The shoegaze/dream pop sound of the EP is definitely a right turn from the sound DDG have become known for, but considering how many bands are revisiting the dream/noise pop template in 2012 I wouldn't be surprised to see this become a permanent direction for the band.

KILLER COVERS || Beck: "Michelangelo Antonioni"

Beck has apparently discontinued his legendary Record Club series - wherein Mr. Hansen and a number of fellow luminaries reinterpreted, song by song, classic albums by the likes of Velvet Underground, Skip Spence and Yanni (!) - but he's not done channeling influences yet. The functionally titled A Tribute to Caetano Veloso comes out October 22 on Universal and features Beck getting all meta by covering a Brazilian singer crooning his own appreciation of famed Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni.

KILLER COVERS || Bettye LaVette: "I'm Not the One"

These lyric videos are getting visually sophisticated enough that you wonder why they don't just go ahead and produce some legit visuals. Anyway...

Bettye LaVette is looking to further establish herself as a key interpreter of modern music with an album of covers sometime later in the fall. With announced renditions by the likes of Neil Young, K.D. Lang and Bob Dylan it's good to see her stretching beyond a predictable old school R&B palette. That said, a Black Keys cover is something you'd expect her to kill effortlessly, and that she does. That she does.

KILLER COVERS || The New Pornographers: "Think About Me"

Are we bringing back the covers album already? As long as it doesn't come off as too obligatory I'm OK with that, but make your purchases count... everything is being tagged, flagged, and bagged these days, so if y'all spill ducats on too many duds all you're gonna get is more duds.

KILLER COVERS || Iron & Wine: "One More Try"

I've always kind of thought George Michael got a bad rap. OK, Wham had some of the gayest songs ever heard outside of a Wednesday-night disco, but the schism rendered by the poofy hair and yacht club attire unfairly transferred to his solo career as well. Well, dammit, both Faith and Listen Without Prejudice has some downright fantastic tunes to their credit (1990 is about the point I stopped paying attention, so I can't vouch for his later stuff).

KILLER COVERS || Joss Stone: "(For God's Sake) Give More Power to the People"

With everyone from Duffy to Adele evoking the 60's, Joss Stone is back to remind her fellow UK singers and the world at large that she was there first. Her debut album consisted entirely of soul and funk covers from the 60's and early 70's - save for a rendition of the White Stripes' then-recent "Fell in Love with a [Boy]" - and now she's back to her roots with Soul Sessions Vol. 2. First single out the box is "(For God's Sake) Give More Power to the People", a dusty Chi-Lites barnburner from the early Black Power days. Look for the record July 31 on Stone'd / S-Curve Records.

KILLER COVERS || Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: "Baby"

As much as any number of current bands are doing retro sounds like 60s girl pop and 70s soul right, there's a certain amount of modernization that slips in during the songwriting process; they never really sound like a song that was both written and recorded in the era indie-band-du-jour is going for... they may get the latter correct, but it's hard to shake off all the influences that have emerged in the 30-40 years since.

KILLER COVERS || St. Vincent: "Some of Them Are Old"

Apparently this was recorded live at a house party with Annie Clark and Steve Nieve (keyboard player for Elvis Costello) contributing. It's not a new St. Vincent song but rather a cover of a pre-ambient Brian Eno track from 1973.
(via Listen Before You Buy):

KILLER COVERS || Ra Ra Riot: "Valerie" [feat. Delicate Steve]

As if the original rendition didn't tip you off (see below), the Friendly Fires remix of Ra Ra Riot's "Valerie" update - yes, the Steve Winwood classic - makes it clear that Ra Ra Riot were definitely inspired by Eric Prydz' super gay club version from a few years back. The latter (also included after the jump) has the distinction of being possibly the hottest heterosexual video ever made for a blatantly homo-oriented tune. Respect.

KILLER COVERS || The Flaming Lips: "God Only Knows"

Anyone familiar with the Flaming Lips - particularly their mid-90's (semi-)crossover period - knows that there's always been a certain pop sensibility behind their skewed, acid-drenched aesthetic. That said, this brand new cover of the Beach Boys classic "God Only Knows" proves that they're not particularly interested in separating the psychedelia from their pop. While arguably one of the more "accessible" things they've done in recent memory, they turn this old chestnut out (Paul McCartney's favorite song of all time, incidentally... let him do his own faithful cover if the original is so damned bulletproof).

This was recorded for one of those MOJO magazine cover CDs that seem to be nothing but anniversary celebrations of classic albums via current artists putting their own spin on the tunes.

KILLER COVERS || School of Seven Bells: "Kiss Them for Me"

If you know three Siouxsie & the Banshees songs "Kiss Them for Me" is one of them ("Peekaboo" and "Christine" are probably the other two... "Lord's Prayer" if you're nasty). No matter how many times you've heard the woozy Siouxsie version you probably won't place the version School of Seven Bells laid down for Record Store Day until the lyrics get rolling. Which is really kind of a baseline expectation for any cover song that legitimately aspires to greatness.

KILLER COVERS || YACHT: "Le Goudron"

Even though the French have a reputation for being passionate and romantic, they can also pull off aloof pretty well too. So it should come as no surprise that YACHT's cover of the 1969 Brigitte Fontaine number "Le Goudron" sounds like the missing link between Krautrock and Kraftwerk. There's a stilted pseudo-rap thing going on that recalls Austrian Falco more than it does Serge Gainsbourg or even Air, but the naive incompetence is half the charm, I guess. You're mostly in this for the beat anyway.

KILLER COVERS || STS: "Comeback Kid"

Cheating like a muffhugger on this one. Not really a cover song at all, but one of those typical mixtape things where they just steal the music from up under another song and rap over top of it. Two things in my defense, though: a) the producers basically just chops up Sleigh Bells' "Comeback Kid" without adding any other samples (aside from a reinforcement bass line), and b) STS retains the title of the backing track. Based on those two things I'ma include it here as a Killer Cover but if y'all wanna hate hate on me and not the track. STS tears this up, and it's a great fucking choice of song. Good job, guys.

Download here.

KILLER COVERS || Win Win: "Walls"

Win Win officially outpimps Spank Rock. Actually, they just one upped they own damn selves by outpimping Crass. Film at eleven.

KILLER COVERS || Neneh Cherry & The Thing: "Dream Baby Dream"

While every other blog is going to be polishing their knob over that middling 3D / DFA / Scarlett Johannsen cover of "Summertime", I've got my sights set on this Neneh Cherry comeback bid. That's because Suicide are one of my favorite acts of all time - and overall possibly the most underrated ever - and "Dream Baby Dream" is one of their greatest tunes, a saccharine antidote to the motorik scumfuck anthems that are "Ghost Rider" and "Frankie Teardrop". No Belgians ever started a riot over "Dream Baby Dream", but this (initially chill) free jazz rendition might just do the trick for those Trappist beer drinking bastards.

KILLER COVERS || White Denim: "Get Back to Love"

Austin-based White Denim combined their own original song "Street Joy" (original here) with R. Kelly's "Get Back to Love" and ended up with a vintage sounding 70s soul classic, complete with falsetto singing. I want to say I remember reading that this was recorded as a b-side to the band's obligatory Record Store Day 7", but you already have enough shit to buy on R.S.D. so I can't be bothered to look that up.