Forget home computer, search engines, or low budget travel; here’s a concept that’ll make you rich: reinterpret metal classics as acoustic/electronic ballads for the dinner party set. How could it fail? So Swedish chefs Hellsongs have cooked up Songs In The Key Of 666 a collection of beautifully rendered acoustica about death and destruction, robot assembly, battlefields and ‘mortal men’ becoming gods.
I have to admit I’m pretty ignorant of metal so I don’t recognise anything, but I’m reliably told by my computerised friend Dr Internet that Hellsongs cover Metallica, Sabbath, Slayer, Iron Maiden and Megadeth. All in all, there’s something sweetly incongruous about the dark masculine posturing of metal when it’s done with a sweet gaspy female singer and poured into a tentative folky idiom. And here’s an observation – without scary voices, tuned-down guitars and distortion pedals heavy metal sounds a bit like Tori Amos! (wasn’t she in a metal band before she was bitten by that radioactive piano?) Anyway – brilliant!

Key Track: ‘Rock the Night’