It’s nothing new that pop-punk group Weezer likes to cover a good song here and there. They recently made headlines by covering Toto’s “Africa” by popular demand. The band’s Teal Album was a solely ‘80s covers album. So with such a background in covering classic pop/rock songs, it almost seems like a given that the band would be taking part in the massive cover album effort, The Metallica Blacklist. “Enter Sandman” is one of Metallica’s best-known songs.

The record is in celebration of Metallica’s legendary self-titled album, aka The Black Album. The album will feature 53 tracks, as multiple artists give their best shot at covering the Metallica songs. Even though the charity album is set to be released in September, fans already enjoyed quite a few early releases of the album. Miley Cyrus released her cover of “Nothing Else Matters” in June, but she is not the only one reimagining the hit single that just hit one billion views on YouTube. Including Cyrus, eleven artists have covered “Nothing Else Matters” for the album, indie-rock’s Phoebe Bridgers being one of them.

“Enter Sandman” is also covered by the metal band Ghost, Columbian singer-songwriter Juanes and others. The song will all in all be covered six times on the record.

Weezer’s version is surprisingly close to the original, at least when it comes to the sound itself. Of course, frontman Rivers Cuomo doesn’t have the deep dark voice of James Hetfield, so it feels a little off, especially when the sound is so close to the original. Something that is worth noting and is greatly appreciated by fans of both bands, is that Weezer actually incorporates their famous riff from “Buddy Holly” close to the end of the song. The visualizer to the song looks a little bit like someone was already so excited for Halloween they created a backdrop for the next Halloween party, mainly because of the use of classic Halloween elements like skulls, bats, creepy hands and ghosts.

Weezer are currently on their massive tour with Green Day and Fall Out Boy, “The Hella Mega Tour.” The band have also shared their plans of releasing four seasonal albums in 2022.

Besides releasing the Weezer cover, Tomi Owó has released their version of “Through The Never,” and Metallica shared their 1992 live version of the song. You can check out both songs below.

Photo Credit: Mehreen Rizvi