NFT's Got You Covered! Wednesdays!

Well I was thinking about making another sweet ass weekly post and felt it would be cool to do one on Wednesdays! Wednesdays? Who does that? I thought. No one! ....Maybe my self-conscious just made me forget that some other site already does this. That's bonkers! Every Wednesday? And only Wednesday? Hmmmm...

So I decided that I love songs by people done by other people and wanted to give them their own little special post. NFT's Got You Covered! is just the post for that and is on Wednesday (hopefully every Wednesday but we'll see about that in time). In other words I will post a band's release that is either a straight up cover album, features all cover songs or just a really good album with (a) really good cover(s)!

Still don't understand? That's weird. Check it:

We Versus The Shark - Murmurmur (2008)

We Versus The Shark were a pretty special Athens, Georgia band that experimented with the powers of math rock, punk, post-punk, dance and in 2008, covering a different inspirational band's song for every one of the months! That's 12 totally legit cover songs! I counted! From Pattern is Movement to Tears For Fears.

While the name of the project, the album art and the fact that are from Athens all seems to wanna lead to you thinking there is a R.E.M. cover song, there is not. So there. And while the album does feature heavy hitters like Radiohead ("Idiotheque"), Tom Waits ("Dirt in the Ground"), and Ben Folds Five ("Regrets"), there is also some lesser known names like The Matt Kurtz One ("Mow You Down Then Put You on a Pedestal") and Drakkar Sauna ("Dog Like This"). There's also the artists who have made a name for themselves in their "little circles" but definitely no R.E.M.

All the tracks are super well done and really show off the bands ability to understand the original intensions of the band and their message. They still did a great job mixing things up and giving them a much more technical sound. They did not throw every song into a triangle arm bar of math rock muscle spasms but it is still very apparent that WVTS had the skills to pay the bills. They really studied each song that were picked and like it says on the site Quote Unquote (That I've put up as the DL link), "We here at We Versus The Shark believe that "interpreting" (whatever) other artists is a good way to learn about structure, melody, and other things we're generally confused by..."

Along with picking some really good jams, Murmurmur by We Versus The Shark introduced me to some rad bands like Pattern is Movement and Future of the Left, and some super far out tracks by Those two bands, Tom Waits and Deerhoofs. They also cover "Head Over Heels" by Tears For Fears for all you Donnie Darko lovers out there or just really love Tears For Fears and Songs from the Big Chair. I have it on vinyl. But who didn't in the 80's...

My favorite covers have to be the Waits' one, Pattern is Movement's "Right Away", Future of the Left's "Suddenly It's A Folk Song", and The Tears For Fears cover. I've actually listened to WVTS's cover of Dirt in the Ground by Tom Waits so much, I wouldn't think the Tom Waits version was the right on if I heard it... Scratch Acid, Television and Shudder To Think also get name dropped covered.

P.S. You can DL all the tracks individually

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