Metallica are, indisputably, a heavy-sounding band – but is it just a result of the tuning they’ve picked, or intrinsic to their music itself?
To find out, YouTuber and guitarist Pete Cottrell has taken some Metallica classics and shifted their tuning to A, 5 semitones higher than what they were before. At higher tuning, formerly meaty riffs can begin to sound a little thinner, so a formerly ball-tearing classic like ‘Battery’ was at risk of sounding, well, a bit underwhelming in its new form.
As it turns out though, all of the tracks still sound suitably chunky, albeit in a slightly more power-metal sort of way. They’re all vocal-less covers, and we imagine that finding a singer who can properly belt them out might not be the easiest task.
It’s always fun to hear how famous songs might have ended up sounding in someone else’s hands, and we’re hanging to hear a few more bands get the helium treatment in Pete’s capable hands.
