The Bad Penny (beta)

Metallica, the biggest metal band ever; and Mastodon, one of the best metal bands of this century, share a lot in common.

For starters, Mastodon started publicly crediting Metallica as major influence shortly after the Atlanta crew became a band in 2000. Six years later, Mastodon covered Metallica’s instrumental classic “Orion” for a tribute album tied to the 20th anniversary celebration of Metallica’s Master of Puppets.

James, Lars and the gang returned the favor a couple of years after that. The thrash gods gave the Atlanta sludge-rockers a huge break by crowning them as the openers for two of Metallica’s European tours. For good measure, 2009’s Guitar Hero: Metallica featured Mastodon’s “Blood and Thunder” as one of its playable tracks.

But the common bonds don’t stop there. There’s a truly uncanny coincidence in two songs by the metal bands, both of which deserve to sit on the Iron Throne. The numbers will be familiar to fans: “Welcome Home (Sanitarium),” from Metallica’s best (or second-best) record, 1986’s Master of Puppets; and “Megalodon,” a gem of a track from Mastodon’s breakthrough record, 2004’s Leviathan.

For nearly an entire minute in both songs, the musicians seem to be chugging on almost exactly the same riff. Check out snippets of the two songs below — and see if you hear what The Bad Penny hears.

More Doppelgängers:

• Axl Rose and GW Bush
• ‘It Follows,’ ‘Hereditary’ and ‘In the Mouth of Madness’
• Mastodon’s Brent Hinds and actor J.C. Quinn
• Brad Penny and Barney Gumble

This entry was posted on 02/17/2023 at 10:16 pm and is filed under Doppelgängers, Features with tags Mastodon, Metallica. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.