Last year, Vera Farmiga, the beloved Hollywood actress most known for appearances in the likes of The Conjuring (and its numerous sequels), Bates Motel, Godzilla: King Of The Monsters and MCU series Hawkeye, went viral for her brilliant cover of Iron Maiden classic The Trooper.
Farmiga had been making one of her regular appearances at a local show put on by Rock Academy - a Woodstock, New York-based music school using rock and heavy metal to bring more young people into music. The actress - who was also accompanied on stage by her husband Renn Hawkey, known to many as the keyboardist in industrial rockers Deadsy - became an instant hero amongst metalheads the world over.
A few months later, Farmiga did it again, courtesy of a full-hearted take on Black Sabbath's timeless War Pigs - with a well-aimed missive directed at Russian despot Vladimir Putin before the song started only adding to the cover's potency (Farmiga is of Ukrainian descent).
Now, incredibly, the Conjuring star has managed to go one even better - she's only gone and covered Slipknot's hallmark anthem, Duality, smashing through the generation-defining 2004 track in style during another Rock Academy show that took place on Monday night (April 17).
"I'll tell you one thing," Farmiga says as she introduces the track, in a video of the performance since posted to her official Instagram page. "This music programme is one thing we can't get enough of. We really do have the time of our lives.
"This is for all the chin-pressers," she adds. "All the eye-pushers. The skit-scratchers. The teeth-grinders."
Farmiga then proceeds to cruise through the Slipknot banger, to the clear delight of a crowd all too happy to accordingly lose its collective minds.
Watch Farmiga's cover of Duality below.
Last year, Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor told Metal Hammer that the Iowan metal legends' latest album, The End, So Far, marked a final chapter of sorts for the band.
Revealing that the album's title was referencing an end to the "third era of Slipknot", Taylor explained that's the nine-pieces next phase will be "kinda turning around and facing the future, like, what’s next? Not reintroducing ourselves, but rediscovering why we want to do this. It’s Slipknot, so it’s a fucking challenge, but it’s cool, and I like the fact that the personalities in the band have been willing to branch out now. Some people have mellowed, as much as they’ve stayed the same, and they’ve realised that we can really fucking do something. So, I guess the title is a reflection of the end of predisposition, and the end of being too self-conscious to really have the courage to express ourselves. It’s basically the end of what was, and the beginning of what could be.”
The band hit the road this summer, stopping off at Florida's Welcome To Rockville Festival before touring Europe across June, including a headline appearance at this year's four-day Download. They then return to the States for two shows in Wisconsin and Ohio respectively, hitting up Rock Fest and Inkcarceration Festival.
The End, So Far is out now via Roadrunner.
