May 042026
 
Blood Vulture

“You Fail Me” is the title track from Converge‘s fifth album and their (relative) commercial breakthrough, released over 20 years ago. Converge aren’t a band we’ve spent a lot of time on here at Cover Me as they’re metalcore, an abrasive hybrid between contemporary metal and hardcore punk. Though extremely prolific for the first decade-plus of their existence, few bands have taken on their songs because, well, they’re metalcore.

Blood Vulture are an alternative metal/doom metal project which debuted last year. We’re getting into metal arcana now, but the short version is that doom metal is a more traditional form of metal than metalcore – doom metal dates from the ’80s, metalcore from the mid to late ’90s – and “alternative metal” just means metal bands that take things from non-metal genres and add them to their sound. And no, it wouldn’t be normal for a doom metal band from the ’80s to cover a metalcore band. But, of course, Blood Vulture are a new project. Continue reading »

Mar 192020
 

Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!

violator

You Want it Darker, the title of Leonard Cohen’s farewell album of 2016, might also have made an appropriate moniker for Depeche Mode’s 1990 release, Violator. The British synthpop group had grown steadily in popularity since signing to the independent Mute label in 1980, even to the point of selling out the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena (over 90,000 seats) in 1988. Yet it was when they took a more direct approach to the subjects of guilt, sin, sexual obsession, and inner torment on their seventh LP that they truly achieved a mass audience. This involved selling three million copies in the US and 15 million worldwide, in the glow of the indomitable hit singles “Personal Jesus” and “Enjoy the Silence.”

Today marks 30 years since the release of Depeche Mode’s bleak, unit-shifting masterpiece, one of the most influential records of the ’90s, and one that made #342 on Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Albums of all Time in 2012. The breadth of artists who’ve covered its songs is testimony to the album’s impact. These artists span an unimaginable variety of genres on an international scale, and they provide ample justification for the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year.
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