I’m a sucker for a cover version and it’s not often you get an album chock full of them, so I was happy to grab this one for review. For me, what makes a good cover is one that maintains enough of the original to be faithful while adding at the very least a spin by the covering artist, a bit (or a lot) of their influence. Kadinja have very much thumped their own rubber stamp over these ten songs.
Thing is, being a bit of an eclectic act in their own right (the bumph bills them as “prog”), the stamps they’ve used throughout this album are as varied as they are. The fact that Kadinja is more than a one-trick pony has allowed them to approach each original song and tailor their “take” on the song itself rather than trying to mould it to their own sound. As such we have a version of Slipknot’s “Spit It Out” (featuring Betraying The Martyrs’ Aaron Matts) which isn’t quite as heavy as the original, but is a hell of a lot more creepy. At the other end of the scale, we have System of a Down’s “Aerials” which is far more laid back and ethereal – a lot less like the original than the Slipknot cover is.
I’ve used this word a lot in many previous reviews and it’s this: variety. DNA is rammed with the stuff. A variety of original artists from a variety of genres having their songs reworked in a variety of ways. On the whole, it works. I confess I wasn’t familiar with every song, and as is often the case with covers I enjoyed the ones where I knew the originals more than those which were wholly new to me. Having said that, the “staying a bit true to the original” helped me place a couple of them such as opener “Hot Dog”. I swear I’ve never heard this before, but the vocals immediately made it obvious that this was a Limp Bizkit song.
My picks from the varied crop are “Aerials”, Papa Roach’s “Between Angels and Insects” and P.O.D’s “Alive” (which really rocks that extra bass and harsh vocals). DNA is an unusual album and I think that’s what gives it so much appeal. It’s not quite what you’re expecting.
DNA is out on September 27th
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