Exclusive Premiere: Dew-Scented Cover Prong’s “Steady Decline”

Germany’s Dew-Scented show no signs of slowing down their deathened thrash (thrashened death?) metal attack despite going at it for over two decades now. In 2012 they released Icarus, one of their strongest albums to date, and already they’re back with Insurgent, a compilation celebrating 20 years as a band that includes live tracks, several covers and a few new songs. Among the covers is a Dew-Scentified version of Prong’s “Steady Decline,” striking the perfect balance between remaining true to the original and injecting it with the band’s own spin. Here’s frontman Leif Jensen on the motivation behind covering this particular track:

I just love Beg To Differ! What an album… the stylistic originality, the artwork, the distinct riffs, the production! Man, that snare drum sound still rules. I thought “Steady Decline” would probably be the best pick off this classic record to be covered by Dew-Scented, especially since I also liked the vibe of the lyrics. When we were freshly done in the studio, I attended a local Beg To Differ full run-through show by Prong in May 2012 and gave Tommy Victor an advance-copy CDR with our version. Unfortunately I never got to hear what he thought about it, but I am guessing he probably disliked my style of vocals?! But yeah, it’s not an easy band to ‘deathmetallize’ without ruining the groove-base, which is why the title-track wouldn’t work at all. We didn’t really know how best to end “Steady Decline” since the original goes out with a fade and that’s something we never learned to deal with (our own songs all have proper endings) so we simply recorded an extra minute loop of the riff and added some crazy drum-patterns on top, from blastbeasts to lounge-jazz. Enjoy!

Prong’s original recording follows: