Metallica’s big upcoming 30th anniversary edition of The Black Album is poised to be one of the bigger musical events of the year. It’s called The Blacklist and it features an enormous collection of disparate artists putting their own spin on Metallica classics. We’ve already heard Miley Cyrus team up with Elton John and Yo-Yo Ma for “Nothing Else Matters” and now we’ve got this dusty number of Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, covering “Sad But True.”
Metallica’s original version features the band’s heavy metal trappings, with drum beats landing like the stomps of some ancient nethergod emerging from its millennia-long slumber in the icy depths. Isbell and Co. have no problem whatsoever spinning the song into a breakneck hillbilly shuffle, suitable for any Nashville jukebox surrounded by cheap beer, fingerpicking cowboys and boot-tapping cowgirls.
It comes in the middle of a great year for Isbell, who is making his acting debut alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon. The Blacklist will drop later this summer, featuring the already-released Metallica covers from Isbell and Cyrus, along with more from the likes of Phoebe Bridgers, My Morning Jacket, Moses Sumney, St. Vincent, Mac DeMarco, Cage the Elephant, Chris Stapleton, Kamasi Washington, J Balvin, Weezer, PUP and so many more.