Never try and top a classic by playing things straight up.

Think about that for a second. No one gives a shit about Slayer’s note-for-note recreation of Minor Threat’s “Guilty of Being White”. Or Guns N’ Roses carbon copy of Fear’s “I Don’t Care About You”. Or the Red Hot Chili Peppers failed to outmuscle the Stooges with “Search and Destroy”.

Looking, meanwhile, for examples of covers that pay homage to the originals while adding something new to the conversation? Consider Sonic Youth’s space-drugs makeover of the Carpenters’ “Superstar”, the Bangles thrashy retooling of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Hazy Shade of Winter”, and the Flying Lizards fabulously fucked up riff on the Motown banger “Money (That’s What I Want)”.

Pink Mountaintops clearly understands that there’s no point trying to out-anger Black Flag on “Wasted”, so the band doesn’t even try. Instead of raw-power fury and flying-snot insanity, project leader Stephen McBean reimagines the first-wave hardcore detonator and panty-removal music for Berlin art-school graduates.

In an approach that’s more punk than what was considered punk, “Wasted” seriously swings with post-paisley underground guitar, a vintage Krautrock drum beat, cloud-drift synths, and a vocal approach that drips sex.

As great as the song is, the video is somehow ever better, that having everything to do with guest appearances by living L.A. legend Steven McDonald of Redd Kross and Off!, Death Valley coconspirator and classically trained violinist Laena Myers-Ionita, and long-time McBean associate Joshua Wells of Black Mountain and Lightning Dust fame.

How great is Pink Mountaintops’ take on “Nervous Breakdown”? Rather than take our word on things, consider what no less than American punk icon Keith Morris has to say about the cover. While Morris’s day jobs include fronting both Off! and the Circle Jerks, he’s also the man on the mike for Black Flag’s “Nervous Breakdown”. Which makes him the most qualified person not named Greg Ginn to weigh in.

“Great job,” Morris has raved, “taking a song that’s been beaten to death by numerous punker dunkers and turning it into your own song! BRAVO!!!!”

The key words there: “your own song.” Kind of like what Therapy did with Hüsker Dü’s “Diane”, D.O.A. pulled off with Edwin Starr’s “War”, and Johnny Cash struck black gold with with his version of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”.

And what Puddle of Mudd’s note-for-note cover of Nirvana’s “About a Girl” totally fucking didn’t. Dear God, people, why would you play things straight up?