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The Medieval version of Metallica

The medieval folk band Stary Olsa (Стары Ольса) has made an impressive cover of the Metallica song ‘One’. This video, released just last month, has been receiving praise:

Founded in 1999 by Źmicier Sasnoŭski, Stary Olsa is based in Belarus but is known throughout Europe for their medieval and early modern music. On their website, the band explains their goal “is to reconstruct completely (whenever possible) musical traditions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania where Belarus was the basic cultural and geopolitical part in the 13th – 18th centuries, and where there was a unique synthesis of Belarusan folk and aulic music with European musical achievements of that time. In order to revive this cultural feature the band’s members mix early Belarusan instruments’ sounding with all-European mediaeval instruments such as lute, rebec and flute.”

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They were invited to take part in the Belarusan TV program “Legends Live” (“Легенды Live”) which did a feature on the American heavy metal band. Here are some of the reactions to their performance:

However, Stary Olsa is not the only band to cover Metallica in the medieval style. Check out this video (one of several) by Medievallica:

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You can also watch these sisters, Dizzi Dulcimer and Emily Edwards, playing Metallica’s hit song “Nothing Else Matters” on the Hammered Dulcimer:

medieval metallica

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