Inter Arma

Inter Arma shares black metal version of Neil Young's "Southern Man" off new covers LP

Inter Arma recently released a live album to benefit COVID-19 relief, and now they announced another very exciting release: a covers album. It’s called Garbers Days Revisited and it comes out July 10 via Relapse (pre-order), and it finds the genre-defying extreme metal band applying their sound to a wide range of songs from Neil Young, Husker Du, Nine Inch Nails, Prince, Cro-Mags, Venom, Tom Petty, and Ministry.

The first cover released is of Neil Young’s “Southern Man,” and Inter Arma’s version of it is a total reinvention and a genuinely great take. They start out turning the song into dark, Swans-y folk, and then they turn it into tornadic black metal without losing sight of the original’s iconic melody. Not your average Neil Young cover by any means.

The band says, “Inter Arma as a whole are massive Neil Young fans. ‘Southern Man’ has been a staple of our live set for over a decade and we finally got around to putting it to tape. We hope you enjoy our spin on this timeless and still extremely relevant song.”

Check it out below:

The album announcement reads:

INTER ARMA celebrate their past on Garbers Days Revisited, their new covers record, recorded in between tours in support of their critically acclaimed 2019 full length Sulphur English. The record, named after the band’s former practice space, was once again tracked at Dark Art Audio in Madison, TN. INTER ARMA show off their wide array of influences, tackling covers by Nine Inch Nails, Prince, Cro-Mags, and more. Garbers Days Revisited sees INTER ARMA redefining the very aspects of the music that inspired and influenced them from their very beginnings.

“Hunter Thompson used to punch out pages of Ernest Hemingway on his typewriter “just to get the feeling of what it was like to write that way,” drummer T.J. Childers comments. “The same can be said for anyone learning a great cover song: there’s a lot to be deduced from the information there. Actually learning the songs can lead to inspirational, new musical ideas.”

INTER ARMA’s inspiration can indeed be felt throughout the 8 tracks therein; from the melancholic, spoken intro leading to the explosive, riff heavy take on the Neil Young classic “Southern Man”, to the nearly pitch-black metallic approach of Hüsker Dü’s “The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill”, every song on Garbers Days Revisited captures the sounds that make INTER ARMA one of the scene’s most unique and creative bands.

Childers continues, “Covers have been an integral part of Inter Arma since the beginning of the band and some of these songs have a direct lineage while others are a little more… obscure. As timing would have it, we hope this provides a bit of an escape for listeners, given the surreal circumstances we’re in at the moment, because after all, great art should provide an escape which is part of why we chose to do this: sometimes you just wanna be runnin’ down a dream…”

Tracklist
1. Scarecrow (Ministry cover)
2. Southern Man (Neil Young cover)
3. Hard Times (Cro-Mags cover)
4. March Of The Pigs (Nine Inch Nails cover)
5. The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill (Husker Du cover)
6. In League With Satan (Venom cover)
7. Runnin Down A Dream (Tom Petty cover)
8. Purple Rain (Prince cover)