Teach ‘em all: A High School Tribute to Metallica

Self-produced
2008

This is the third effort from High School Tribute project which is lead by teacher/producer Patrice Beaudette who has given a group of talented young people a chance to make their own album. The other two projects were dedicated to KISS, but this time Metallica are the object of the tribute. I remember discovering Metallica as a teenager as I listened in awe to a tiny radio cranking out “For whom the bell tolls” on a late night radio show back in the summer of 1985. I remember having to pick my chin off the floor in early 1986 when my ears first soaked in the Master of puppets. Even though Metallica never quite became what I hoped, it’s still great to hear young music fans appreciating the contributions of this band. So we get eleven tracks which includes some of the more standards like Creeping Death and Welcome home (Sanitarium), but much to their credit they tackle some slightly lesser known tracks like “Eye of the beholder” and “The thing that should not be” as well. For some reason the lesser known tracks seem to be the ones that this group excelled on. My sticking point with covers is that an artist needs to bring something of their own ideas to the mix or else it’s pointless. The major difference that these performers brings are the vocals because we get both and male and female vocals throughout and different performers that have various vocal ranges. That’s not to say that all of the vocals work, but the variation certainly helps to make it more interesting and most of the vocals are strong. Now the first part of the music that struck me was the drum sound, it was raw, pounding and quite honestly I loved it. I only wish the rest of the music had been as solid, but the guitar tone was often just adequate. There are a few minor changes in arrangement and what was done was fine, but it could used a few more risks and a little more energy. As a whole I think this is certainly a better than average tribute album and maybe even more so considering the age of the performers and the fact the majority of these tracks are over six minutes in length. Certainly an interesting project that the people involved can be proud of.

http://www.myspace.com/highschooltributes