Apocalyptica had to be talked into recording their debut album, Plays Metallica By Four Cellos. Having formed the band for a bit of fun, they didn’t really think anyone would want to hear four classically trained metalheads recreate their favourite band’s music beyond the odd club show. As it turned out, they would go
on to sell six million albums, tour the world, write their own songs and have rock and metal luminaries from Dave Lombardo and Corey Taylor to Cristina Scabbia and Ville Valo lining up to guest on tracks.
Now, thought, it all comes full circle. It’s strange to think that the first Plays Metallica... was released in June 1996, just days after Metallica themselves released Load. It’s an epoch away and, consequently, Plays Metallica Vol. 2 is a very different beast to its predecessor. The first album was packed with hits and iconic tracks from Metallica’s ‘classic’ era. They were the obvious choices at the time perhaps, but transposing monsters like Enter Sandman and Master Of Puppets to cello was certainly not an obvious or even a very sensible thing to do. This was, after all, still three years before Metallica teamed up with the San Francisco Symphony for S&M – and who knows how much influence Apocalyptica’s success had on that little diversion?
