Black Sabbath isn’t the easiest rock band in the world to cover, even if a few of their songs are on the simple side of metal. In fact, we’d say that most heavy metal songs aren’t exactly easy to cover, considering one has to match the energy of the original song in order for a cover to hit well. These four bands, however, covered Black Sabbath beautifully. Let’s take a look!
1. Melvins
This odd, sometimes surreal, yet incredibly important band from the grunge/sludge metal era knows how to perform a cover that sounds very different from the source material yet still manages to be incredibly good.
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Melvins paid homage to their metal roots with a killer rendition of Black Sabbath’s “Into The Void” years ago. Their version is agonizingly slow, but once the “Buildings crashing down” bit kicks off, Melvins crank it up to an almost alarming speed.
2. Metallica
It only makes sense that Metallica covered Black Sabbath at least a few times through the years. Their rendition of “Sabbra Cadabra” is one of our favorites.
Metallica took on this tribute to their forefathers back in 1998. It’s always beautiful when a band covers another band in a similar genre, yet manages to make the song sound entirely their own. “Symptoms Of The Universe” is another cover from Metallica that could have made it to this list, too.
3. Pantera
Like Metallica, it only makes sense that groove metal outfit Pantera would dish out a tribute to Black Sabbath. Their cover of “Planet Caravan” is a fan favorite, and for good reason. This song has more psychedelic leanings, and Pantera managed to match the OG song’s energy in an impressive way. This cover came out in 1994 and features impressive vocals from Phil Anselmo.
4. The Cardigans
The Cardigans covered Black Sabbath a couple of times back in the day, and they always managed to capture the energy of “Changes” while making it look easy. Considering The Cardigans are an alt-rock band with pop leanings, covering a metal song is pretty dang impressive in our opinion. It’s a shame that this cover never got a proper studio version.
Photo by Roberto Ricciuti/Redferns
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