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Editorials

SKOLNICKS FALL

 Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 3:30pm by

“Bark at the Moon” is to Shadows Fall as “Holy Diver” is to Killswitch Engage. They’re both covers of classic solo tracks by former Sabbath vocalists, and both songs were released in their original incarnation in 1983. (The connection between the two songs gets even weirder if you consider that Vinny Appice played drums on “Diver,” while his brother, Carmine, appears in the original “Moon” video even though he didn’t play on the recording.) And just as I imagine that it’ll be some time before KSE ever play another set without doing “Diver,” so it seems that “Moon” is now a staple of the Shads’ live show.

The band recently played the song in Toronto, with a special guest appearance from Alex Skolnick on guitars. The influence of Testament on Shadows Fall has always seemed pretty clear, so it’s cool to watch them get to jam with one of their heroes. Bonus: you can imagine an alternate world where Skolnick left Testament in 1992 and became Ozzy’s guitar player. It would have been post-No More Tears, the last truly worthwhile Ozzy album; Skolnick might have saved us from another seventeen years of sub-par material and guitar squeals!

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

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  • Hammer_Smashed_Hurtt

    No way, Shadows Fall’s Cover spanks KsE’s Holy Diver. I cant get on board with the retarded time changes. And ive always prefered Shadows Fall to KsE.

    In the end its still just covers..

  • Discipleofthewatch

    Hooray, I love Shads, and I love Testament. What an awesome combination! Right on! I did see this on YouTube before, and I liked it then, too.

    And I like both Dio Holy Diver and the KsE Holy Diver. I have played both versions back to back for my kids before, so that they could compare the two. But I do also prefer Shadows Fall to Killswitch.

  • Genial Gentile

    I have never heard the studio version of this cover, but it seems pretty plain from this video that B.Fair’s vocal chops aren’t quite up to par for this song. Covers are always pretty hit or miss with me to begin with though.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Simon-Threadgate/1049955838 Simon Threadgate

    Am I the only one who thought this post would be about Revenge Of The Nerds when reading the headline?

    • Kuranes

      Yes.

  • Andy Synn

    Shadows Fall plus any member of Testament = Win

    Shadows Fall doing a sub-par cover of a comedy Ozzy solo-track = Fail

    As you can tell i’m somewhat conflicted over this footage.

  • Perry Mason

    Er, he WAS briefly a touring guitarist with Ozzy. Brian even mentions it when introducing him.

  • http://www.last.fm/user/opeth027/ Kyle

    Man, Skolnick’s skunk-stripe in his hair just keeps looking more and more ridiculous every day! :-P

    Pretty cool that he did this though!

  • paganheart

    The difference between KsE’s cover of “Holy Diver” and SF’s cover of “Bark At The Moon” is that KsE maintains the style and integrity of Dio’s original while still making the song their own–no small feat. If you didn’t know about the original version you’d never guess that “Holy Diver” wasn’t a KsE original. SF’s “Bark At The Moon” is almost too faithful to the original–right down to the cheesy video that’s basically a remake of Ozzy’s video for the song! ;-) That having been said, I think both covers rock, and Jon Donias proves he can shred with the best of them in this clip. I envy the fans in Toronto who got to see this in person!!

    • Hammer_Smashed_Hurtt

      Dude.. the only thing different in KsE’s version is the stop-go time changes in the drum pattern.

  • Bierko

    Hah, the Shadows Falls fans had no idea who walked out on stage.

  • hi my name is mark

    I’m not going to lie, I thought the article read “Skolnicks Fail”.

  • ITTOA666

    Alex just officially dominated Jake E. Lee.