Psalm Zero cover Today is the Day on debut 7" (stream it)

By Doug Moore

Charlie Looker with Extra Life, 2010 (more by Sarahana)

After playing a number of shows over the course of the past year, Psalm Zero — the industrial metal collaboration between Charlie Looker of the sadly defunct Extra Life and Andrew Hock of Castevet — will release their debut 7″, Force My Hand, next week. We’ve debuted the B-side of that 7″ over at Invisible Oranges — it’s an oddball acoustic cover of Today is the Day‘s noise rock classic “Willpower”. From our writeup:

Psalm Zero wisely do not play the cover straight. Instead, they detour far from both the original recording and their own sound. For the most part, this band plays shuffling, oddly ethereal industrial metal that suggests more complexity than it employs. (You can hear a sample here.) But their “Willpower” cover isn’t metal at all; it’s not even amplified. Hock splits vocal duties with Looker on most Psalm Zero songs, but here he limits himself to layered acoustic guitar work. Looker delivers Steve Austin’s elliptical lyrics in a measured tenor chant. Fittingly, he double-tracks his voice. Their cover strips all the violence from the TITD original and take liberties with its structure, but the spiritual discomfort at its core endures in full. It’s a remarkable effect.

Read the full writeup over at IO.

Force My Hand comes out on Last Things Records on November 19. Preorder it here. In related news, Disparish — which also features Hock on guitar — will play their first show at the Ævangelist show at Saint Vitus on January 25.

Stream both the Psalm Zero TITD cover and the original version below.

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