Jordan Olds’ great Two Minutes To Late Night video series has brought together a whole lot of heavy musicians to play all-star covers of classic songs, both of the heavy and non-heavy variety. Since the series started in the early pandemic era, most of those Two Minutes To Late Night covers have shown up on Monday mornings. But in recent months, the covers have been a little more conceptual. On Halloween, for instance, Olds played all the instruments in a solo salute to the film scores of John Carpenter. And a few days ago, on Black Friday, Two Minutes To Late Night celebrated the occasion with a new version of Metallica’s “Blackened.”

This new cover marks the first time that the 2M2LN crew has taken on a Metallica song, and they’ve definitely made an event out of it. Thanks to Metallica’s own goofy Metallica Blacklist project, we’ve heard a whole lot of Metallica covers in recent months, but we haven’t heard one like this. In taking on “Blackened,” the great opening track from 1988’s …And Justice For All, this crew has switched things up, playing the song’s fast parts slow and the slow parts fast. It sounds wrong on some fascinating level, even if that opening riff does sound pretty awesome when it’s taken halfway to doom.

Very few people could convincingly take on James Hetfield’s bellow-grunt vocal, but Mastodon’s Troy Sanders is one of those people. On the “Blackened” cover, Sanders sings lead, while Spirit Adrift leader Nate Garrett and Bad Wolves member Doc Coyle play guitar. Daniel Wilding, the reunion-era drummer for death metal greats Carcass, gets his Lars Ulrich on, while Jordan Olds, in his guise as Gwarsenio Hall, does Jason Newsted duties. Below, watch the cover and, for comparison’s sake, listen to the original “Blackened.”

Check out the Two Minutes To Late Night Patreon here. All Patreon fees and eventual Bandcamp sales of the “Blackened” cover will be donated to the Sunrise Movement.