Driving Mrs Satan
Album: Popscotch
Label: Agualoca
Tracks: 11
Website: http://drivingmrssatan.com/

As a card carrying, dyed-in-the-wool Metalhead of 20 years I really wasn't looking to listening to this. Many bands from a variety of genres have parodied heavy metal in the past and while it's amusing to start with it ends up getting old very quickly (Hayseed Dixie anyone?).

It's a great relief though that Driving Mrs Satan have put together a quite beautiful tribute to some wonderful bands by pilfering lyrics wholesale and wrapping them round some excellent contemporary folk tunes. The music itself is pretty much unrecognisable from the original songs with well known 'hits' from the likes of Slayer, Metallica, Black Sabbath and Faith No More softened into guitar and double bass driven folk-pop with just a smidgen of Mediterranean charm courtesy of Italian born singer Claudia.

Unlike a lot of recordings of this ilk, Popscotch deserves to be listened to time and time again and indeed grows in stature with each repeated spin. In essence that's as big a compliment as you can pay to a project like this.

Rob Fearnley