Various - _Peaceville X_ (Peaceville, April 1998)
by: Pedro Azevedo (no rating)
Peaceville is now ten years old, and have decided to release something special -- the choice was this compilation CD that features the most important bands in the current Peaceville roster playing non-metal covers. I have to say that it'd probably be something else to have My Dying Bride playing Emperor's, say, "With Strength I Burn", Anathema covering The Blood Divine's "Wilderness" and The Blood Divine playing Anathema's "The Beloved", or maybe even Dominion emulating The Gathering... I think it would have been much harder and more challenging than their actual choices. You can check Peaceville owner Hammy's opinion about this in my interview in this issue. Seriously, though, the option chosen here was to play non-metal songs that'd somehow fit each band's style (or sort of), and the result is actually interesting -- even if not constantly, but this is very usual in compilations. Anathema open _Peaceville X_ with their melancholic version of Pink Floyd's "One of the Few". Later, someone (presumably Daniel Cavanagh) from Anathema plays piano for Dominion's Michelle Richfield's very good, emotional vocal interpretation of the surprisingly doomy "Better Off Dead" (Bad Religion). Her vocals here are the best thing to be found on the compilation, in my opinion. Anathema also finish the CD with another doomy Pink Floyd cover, this time "Goodbye Cruel World". My Dying Bride play "Some Velvet Morning" (Nancy Sinatra / Lee Hazelwood) and Portishead's "Roads": nothing remarkably good, just listenable. One of Peaceville's new bands, Thine, closes the positive part of the CD with a good cover of Nick Cave's sarcastically titled "Song of Joy", one of his good songs. The rest... well, the rest is either just reasonable or rather mediocre. The Blood Divine completely disappoint with their covers of The Osmonds and Joy Division, Dominion play Tears for Fears' "Shout" and Rolling Stones' "Paint it Black", Blackstar covers Husker Du and Thin Lizzy, Acrimony choose Status Quo and Lid play the Beatles' "Don't Let Me Down". As for a rating, well, either you think that you will enjoy such covers or you don't...