Hear Metallica’s ‘Kill ‘Em All’ Played in the Style of ZZ Top

Metallica’s debut album Kill ‘Em All is a stone-cold basic, a touchstone of thrash metallic with clearly traceable influences, together with Motorhead, Venom and Mercyful Fate. But what if the Bay Area quartet had taken affect from a band on their aspect of the pond?

A band like ZZ Top?

Musician and content material creator Denis Pauna has introduced that hypothetical situation to life with a latest efficiency of Kill ‘Em All performed in its entirety in the model of that little ol’ band from Texas. You can take heed to his creation, lovingly dubbed Top ‘Em All, under. It’s additionally obtainable on streaming providers.

Pauna posted the full-album efficiency on July 31, six days after the fortieth anniversary of Kill ‘Em All. It follows his well-received, Southern-fried rendition of “Seek & Destroy.”

Inexplicably, the entire album works terrifically as a bluesy, Southern-rock romp. Songs like “The Four Horsemen” and “Whiplash” turn into greasy, midtempo jams, with Pauna nailing the laidback pocket grooves of Dusty Hill and Frank Beard, in addition to Billy Gibbons’ spicy blues licks and grizzled vocals.

Released on July 25, 1983, Kill ‘Em All helped usher the burgeoning thrash metallic subgenre into the mainstream and started Metallica’s path to world domination in earnest. Its full-speed-or-nothing method wasn’t a concerted effort on the band’s half, however one thing that occurred naturally.

“It was something that we were just doing together,” drummer Lars Ulrich instructed Metal Hammer in 2022. “I don’t sit here and go, ‘I did this, he did that.’ We all just ended up living together, being on top of each other 24/7. We drank the same beer, ate the same shitty food, listened to the same music, like you do when you’re 18 or 19 years old. I don’t think one person was more responsible for this than any other guy was. It was more us just trying to make it heavier and faster and more over-the-top.”