Limp Bizkit’s Wes Borland has reimagined Metallica’s ‘Orion’, and somehow, it works.
The Limp Bizkit guitarist uploaded a clip of the 1986 Master of Puppets instrumental to Instagram over the weekend, calling it “horsing around and loopidy loopin” with the track. True to form, it’s weird, warped, and drenched in effects. But it still nods to the original’s weight and atmosphere.
While Borland did not say if it’s making its way into the band’s live set, fans are already asking for it to be played when Limp Bizkit hit the road with Metallica this summer. The nu-metal lifers are supporting them on six dates of the M72 tour between April and June, sharing the slot with Ice Nine Kills. If Borland does slip this into the set, it’ll be the strangest tribute Cliff Burton’s ever had. And perhaps one of the most honest.
Here there’s no screaming, no breakdown, no ironic wink. It’s just a rework of one of metal’s most sacred instrumentals from a guy in black contacts and corpse paint. That tension is precisely why it hits.
‘Orion’ was mostly written by Burton and played at his funeral after his death in 1986. It’s a track soaked in mythology and memory. Hetfield even tattooed the bridge section on his arm. So for Borland to take it on, and not butcher it with a “nu-metal twist,” is a bit of a curveball, but it lands.
Limp Bizkit just wrapped their Loserville tour and will hit Reading & Leeds later this year. They’re also back in the studio working on the follow-up to 2021’s Still Sucks, which was better than it had any right to be.
Whether this ‘Orion’ cover was just a one-off experiment or something more, it’s a reminder that behind the dumb humour and dad caps, Borland’s always been more than just Fred Durst’s foil.
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