New(ish) Music: Past Tense Of Never "Policy Of Truth"

Ah, cover versions. Sometimes they are brilliant, sometimes you slowly shake your head and want to scream "what did you DO!"

Fortunately, this is not one of the latter.

Allow me to introduce you to Past Tense Of Never. They're a four piece hard rock band from North Carolina and have been with their current lineup since 2018. Their previous EP "When Daughters & Sons Revolt” was a 12 part epic piece of ear-splitting hard rock blended with an overarching storyline and some very clever link pieces - definitely something you will need to have a listen to.

But before you go off to have a listen (and trust me, you should!) you will find, squirrelled away at track 11 of 12, their spin on the Depeche Mode classic “Policy of Truth”.

It should be noted at this point, that my favourite band in the world is Depeche Mode and the best album they recorded was the 1990 masterpiece "Violator" - whereupon you will find the quite brilliant Policy of Truth. You should also note that it's a very rare occurrence that I like a cover version of any track from that album. Some things should be left alone, right?

Wrong.

Much like Failure's version of "Enjoy The Silence" (my favourite song of all time!), Past Tense of Never have achieved that rarest of achievements - a cover song that I really like!

The song jumped out at Guitarist Steven Myers during a rough patch in his life. "I was going through some personal 'come to Jesus' moments with a person I thought was dear to me, but was actually using my family to support their own ends. They were finally outed due to their own behavior, and I used this energy to complete the cover."

It's very loud, as well it should be. The guitar crunches and the sassy vocals bring this timeless classic bang up to date - with the emphasis on Bang. There is a nod to the original with the familiar synth melody. All in all, a quite brilliant re-interpretation.

Oh, by the way... our rating is a whopping 9.8/10. The highest we've rated a track to date. The only thing stopping it being a 10? Well... it is a cover version of one of my favourite songs ever. But I'm pretty sure the band will forgive me for that.

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