This came out in 2000 — or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
An unforgettable cover tune is a double-edged sword.
Sure, it can make your career — just ask Run-DMC, who broke big-time with their Aerosmith-supported version of Walk This Way, or more recently, Save Ferris, who cashed in with a remake of Dexy’s Come on Eileen. But an inspired revampe of somebody else’s tune can also work against you by overshadowing your own music. Such is the fate of Night In Gales. For an obscure German thrash-metal outfit, their fourth album Nailwork has generated its fair share of press, thanks to the bone-crushing rewrite of Allanah Myles’ Black Velvet that serves as its centrepiece. But remarkably rip-snorting and revolutionary as it is — despite reading the title, I honestly didn’t connect this bludgeoning blood-boogie with Myles’ sultry hit until the unmistakable chorus kicked in — it isn’t half as heavy as Nailwork’s other 10 salvos of blast-furnace metal, which forge hellfire vocals and divebombing guitars into a frenzy of time and shape-shifting mayhem. Think of them as the iron fist inside the black velvet glove.
