It didn't take long for people to find some reason to complain about Metallica's new album, Hardwired ...To Self Destruct. Less than two days after details of the album were revealed, people have noticed that the cover artwork bears similarities to records by Crowbar and Foo Fighters.

Hardwired's cover features photos of all four members making angry faces and looking in different directions superimposed on top of each other, which is the same idea that Crowbar had for 1998's Odd Fellows Rest, although Crowbar's cover was in black-and-white. The day that Metallica announced the Nov. 18 release of Hardwired, frontman Kirk Windstein blew off the idea that Metallica had ripped off his band.

"This is Kirk," he wrote on his Facebook page. "In all fairness, after touring with the mighty Metallica, while in Down...I know the fellas know who Crowbar is...however, I seriously doubt that any member of Metallica stole this idea from us. Maybe the artist? Anyway you slice it...it's a cool cover idea!!! Now James and Lars, go listen to Odd Fellows Rest!!! lol"

While there is an undeniably similarity between Metallica and Crowbar, comparing Hardwired to Foo Fighters' 2011 album Wasting Light is a bit of a stretch. Although it contains superimposed pictures of the band, they don't all appear to be melting together, and each of its members appear to be represented twice. But both covers are in color.

Then again, maybe Foo Fighters were paying tribute to Crowbar with Wasting Light. After all, frontman Dave Grohl cut his teeth in the Washington, D.C., punk scene, and D.C. had a legendary biker bar called the Crow Bar, which closed in 1998, the same year that Odd Fellows Rest came out.

Of course, a case could be made that Queen kind of got there first with Queen II...

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