Pierce The Veil – “Karma Police” (Radiohead Cover)
Last week, Stereogum published Eli Enis’ thorough and depressing survey of the current state of big-room metal. Shit is bleak out there! In this corner of the internet, many of us have been pointedly ignoring this stuff for a long time, but it exists, and it’s more popular than some of us might want to admit. The same is true of Pierce The Veil, a San Diego trio who get a brief mention in Eli’s article. Pierce The Veil’s sound is a kind of adenoidal pop-punk/metalcore fusion, and they are fucking huge. Now, they’re out here covering Radiohead.
Pierce The Veil regularly play to thousands of people as headliners, and they’re opening for Blink-182 this summer. Last year, the band landed their first #1 hit on the Alternative Airplay chart last year, which means that this column might someday get to them. You know who’s never had a #1 hit on that chart? Radiohead! (“Creep” peaked at #2.)
Last year, the Pierce The Veil covered Radiohead’s beloved OK Computer classic “Karma Police” (peaked at #14) on Australia’s Triple J Radio. Now, they’ve released the very faithful studio version, which sounds a lot like the Radiohead original if it was whinier. This is what we get. Listen below.