The Tubs Announce Merge Signing With Jangle Pop Metallica Cover

The Tubs! They're one of the best bands going, and they just signed to one of the finest labels in indie rock. After two albums for the late, great Chicago institution Trouble In Mind, the London janglers have linked up with Merge Records.

Along with the announcement, the Band To Watch alums are sharing a Tubs-ified cover of Metallica's epochal heavy metal power ballad "Fade To Black." The song translates surprisingly well to their British-folk-meets-college-rock lineage. Owen Williams continues to bellow like Eddie Vedder, and his bandmates continue to evoke R.E.M. in Super Saiyan mode.

Williams offered this statement:

Signing to Merge is a dream come true for The Tubs…we’ve been huge fans since we were teens. They’ve put out some of our fave records of all time and we could tell you them all here but we don’t have the space. Call Taylor on +** **** ****** if you’d like the full list.

I’ve always been a big fan of a Metallica ballad. Obviously I like the riffs too but I think there’s a weirdly beautiful and singular quality to their ballads, even though the lyrics are basically always trash. We thought it’d be fun to jangle up Fade To Black and give it a sort of folk rock reinvented outro to announce the signing.

Listen below.