Scarlett Johansson, Tegan and Sara, Amanda Palmer Cover New Steel Train Album

New Jersey’s indie rock band, Steel Train, has been around over a decade now and they’ve still got it even if they’re only releasing their third (self-titled) studio album this year. We were lucky enough to catch a set of theirs a while back and are highly anticipating the arrival of the fresh new album in our hands on June 29.

However, lead singer and songwriter of Steel Train, Jack Antonoff, has shared with us that he had always heard the new album with a female vocalist. Of course, the new album will feature the guys on vocals but they had another trick up their sleeve to make that idea happen. They’ve not only gotten one female singer to cover a track off the new album but they’ve successfully acquired more than ten very well-known ladies to make this become a reality!

Terrible Thrills, Vol.1, which will be available with a pre-order of Steel Train, features appearances by the following ladies in this order: Scarlett Johansson, Tegan & Sara, Holly Miranda, Deradoorian, Alia Shawkat, Amanda Palmer, Elizabeth and the Catapult, Charlotte Caffey (of The Go Go’s) and Astrid McDonal, Anna Waronker, Rachel Antonoff and more.

Antonoff explains, “What makes this album so special to us is that each of these amazing artists took our songs and made it into something totally new and special. They’ve created an altered universe version of Steel Train,” and laughed when he added, “My wish came true!”

It sounds like a pretty interesting cover album although we’re already not fond of Johansson doing covers (of anyone), but Holly Miranda (of The Jealous Girlfriends) and Deradoorian (of Dirty Projectors) along with Amanda Palmer and Elizabeth and the Catapult (one of our past Favs) sound all right to us. The only thing that confuses us is Arrested Development star, Alia Shawkat. We weren’t aware she had any vocal talents. She’ll always be Maeby Funke to us but maybe she’s a talented singer who just flew under our radar! (Sorry, we just can’t control the puns sometimes.)

What do you think of this cover album by all these well-known ladies? Are Steel Train lucky or no?