Ellefson, the side project of David Ellefson of Megadeth released an album of cover tunes entitled No Cover on November 20th. Ellefson shared a cover of Queen’s 1977 song “Sheer Heart Attack” from the album News Of The World with Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal, Doro Pesch and Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante.
Ellefson’s version of the track sounds almost identical to the original. There are only minor differences between the two versions aside from the singers and production quality being different. One difference is on the original version the guitar effects such as the phaser or the scraping of the strings are much louder and more dynamic whereas on the Ellefson version they are present but are much quieter. 

“Sheer Heart Attack” was written entirely by Roger Taylor. The original version did not feature Queen’s bassist John Deacon. Roger Taylor played all instruments on the track except guitar which was done by Brian May and vocals done by Freddie Mercury. It is one of the few Queen songs not to feature Deacon. 

Many covers on the album are from hard rock bands of the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s. Ellefson also covered the AC/DC song “Riff Raff” with Dave Lombardo on his album. “Auf Weidersehen” by Cheap Trick was also covered with Benante and Al Jourgensen.

photo credit: Mauricio Alvarado