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Tenacious D - The Pick Of Destiny
Epic Records - November 14th, 2006
By Brandon Strader
After five whole years of waiting, the new Tenacious D album is finally out, and it is actually a motion picture soundtrack. You would think being an OST would give it some extra freedom, like the inclusion of orchestral pieces from the film, and the one at the end of "Kickapoo" that we will see in the movie... this is sadly untrue. "Kickapoo" is the same on disc apart from a couple areas: when young JB cries, it's a single 'Wah!' instead of the long series of squeals shown in the movie. The song also ends with a fast roll of toms instead of the film version that lasts quite a bit longer and morphs into an epic orchestral arrangement... "Kickapoo" is still pretty incredible, though it has a lot of profanity in it. Meat Loaf (the vocalist) makes an appearance to scold young JB about rock and how it is evil. After that, young JB beckons for assistance from Dio, who then enters the song to inform JB of what he has to do, and where he has to go to form the greatest band on earth. The "Kickapoo" song is great, and the acoustic performance near the beginning with 'The dragon's balls were blazing...' is very silly and enjoyable!
"Classico" is about as good of a song as you can get with an acoustic guitar, and a crazy person singing vocals for it. Kyle Gass unleashes classical riff after classical riff while JB scats and delivers ridiculous lyrics. It's like minstrels gone bad; sure, the song is awesome and very funny, but you can just imagine these two standing on a street corner performing this somewhere in full minstrel garb to the disgust of onlookers. "Baby" is the first song with a lack of profanity, and it is very mellow. It almost has country music vibes during the chorus section. The vocal harmonies are very well done, and the immitation of a baby that JB does at the end is pretty hilarious. "Destiny", I'm convinced, is just filler. The band says 'They must pay the rent with their rock!' and plays some powerchords with a somewhat lo-fi heavy tone. Still, at only 37 seconds long, it isn't that big of a filler piece. You may remember "History" from the old HBO series. It's not just a list of bullcrap they've done in the past, but it's also a chronicaling of their rise to power. The fast strummed acoustic riffs on this song sound better than ever, and the acoustic tone throughout the whole album is actually extremely good and can always be heard without too much pick noise.
"The Government Totally Sucks" is a typical rocking song with all of the F-bombs making a return to the lyrics. The best part of the song is the second half when they start playing the awesome hippie chords and singing about bringing back the USA. There are only three or four songs that are especially good on The Pick Of Destiny, which is very dissapointing since their debut album - which was 20 minutes longer than this one - was stuffed with gold. If they would have included the orchestral arrangements, and the comedy dialogue like they did on the first album, they could have really made it a lot more enjoyable for the fans and made it a true motion picture soundtrack! "Master Exploder" is an awesome song with the acoustic guitars again being strummed pretty fast, yet there are also heavy guitars behind them which makes the song sound pretty heavy. JB does his own version of the heavy metal falsetto rise at the beginning, and continues to sing about how he doesn't need a microphone and his voice is powerful... The coolest part of the song are the guitar arpeggio harmonies through the latter half. As a whole, it's definitely one of the cooler songs on the album and is not filler. "The Divide" starts out with some dialogue from JB saying, 'What's it gonna be, Kyle? You've got to decide... tits, or destiny?' to which Kyle responds with the obvious answer. The song then breaks into 9 seconds of heavy riffing similar to what you would hear on the last album, and immediately links into possibly the silliest song on the whole album...
"Papagenu (He's My Sassafrass)" is the first song that really has spoilers from the movie in the lyrics, so they won't be mentioned - however, the squeals and screams from the band and the Sasquatch people are very funny, and the 'ooh-la la' vocal arrangements are pretty goofy, but when combined with the drums, guitars, and the flute, it really becomes the most hilarious song on the whole album. It's like little fairies dancing around in a candy store or something. Similar to "The Government Totally Sucks", the song whips into an acoustic chord progression at the end that is really cool but completely different than what was in the song before that, so the transition is a bit rough. It's a very cool and funny song with a nice rock 'n' roll solo by KG near the end. "Dude (I Totally Miss You)" is a sad ballad that yet again holds some kind of spoiler - I'm guessing KG runs away at some point and leaves JB all alone, leaving him to play this sad acoustic ballad and sing these sad lyrics which happen to have a lot of F-bombs in there, again. It may be about KG being gone, yet in reality, KG supplies a cool acoustic solo near the beginning, and also great vocal harmonies as well. Although the song is quite serious, JB still sees a chance to put in a ridiculous little vocal scat, which will probably make you laugh at least once when you hear it. The next two songs, "Break-In City" and "Car Chase City" are two generic hard-rocking chase songs. There are a lot of cool riffs, and vocal lines throughout the two songs, and the lyrics are, again, pretty silly. There's a great fast solo in "Break In-City" that is probably the highlight of the song. "Car Chase City" starts out like Judas Priest's "Painkiller", and then swoops down into more generic heavy rockin' riffs. I think at this point, you realize that the lyrics are goofy in every song, so it need not be mentioned again! JB tries to do heavy metal vocals at one point yet sounds more like Cartman from South Park, which was probably intentional.
"Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown)" is just a tiny bit better than "Kickapoo", but they are the two especially epic songs on the album - that's right - only two! It features Dave Grohl, the guy who handles the drum duties, doing "demonic vocals" which you fellows may know as growls. There's a lot of profanity in this one too, but the lyrics seem to follow the story a lot more. The devil is complete, and says the world is his.. So the D challenge him to a rock off. The funny thing is, the devil actually rocks a lot harder than the D did, and he was going to take KG to hell to be his little bitch but they break his horn and send him back to hell, or something. It's hard to tell what is going on without having seen the movie... The devil tosses out a cool rock solo, and really trashes hard during his section of the rock off, and even his lyrics are hilarious throughout the song. When the D's part starts, KG playings a sad acoustic part and sings about how they are doomed. They recap stuff they've been through to get where they are, and say it's time to blow the devil down... Then they start rocking acoustically and eventually enter the most awesome rocking you've ever heard from the D. Choir vocals rise up as the D continue to rock hard with their acoustics, and some heavy guitars in there too, and their rock off section ends with a few bars of power metal. Needless to say, it's probably the best song on the album, yet there are a lot of good ones on there, and a lot of not so good ones... It's an album that fans will have to spend some time with before they can appreciate it, and non-fans will probably only like those two songs ("Kickapoo", "Beelzeboss"). Not as good as their self-titled debut, but it isn't half bad..
7.5/10
UM's Review Rating Scale
Official Tenacious D Website
Official Epic Records Website
Epic Records - November 14th, 2006
By Brandon Strader
After five whole years of waiting, the new Tenacious D album is finally out, and it is actually a motion picture soundtrack. You would think being an OST would give it some extra freedom, like the inclusion of orchestral pieces from the film, and the one at the end of "Kickapoo" that we will see in the movie... this is sadly untrue. "Kickapoo" is the same on disc apart from a couple areas: when young JB cries, it's a single 'Wah!' instead of the long series of squeals shown in the movie. The song also ends with a fast roll of toms instead of the film version that lasts quite a bit longer and morphs into an epic orchestral arrangement... "Kickapoo" is still pretty incredible, though it has a lot of profanity in it. Meat Loaf (the vocalist) makes an appearance to scold young JB about rock and how it is evil. After that, young JB beckons for assistance from Dio, who then enters the song to inform JB of what he has to do, and where he has to go to form the greatest band on earth. The "Kickapoo" song is great, and the acoustic performance near the beginning with 'The dragon's balls were blazing...' is very silly and enjoyable!
"Classico" is about as good of a song as you can get with an acoustic guitar, and a crazy person singing vocals for it. Kyle Gass unleashes classical riff after classical riff while JB scats and delivers ridiculous lyrics. It's like minstrels gone bad; sure, the song is awesome and very funny, but you can just imagine these two standing on a street corner performing this somewhere in full minstrel garb to the disgust of onlookers. "Baby" is the first song with a lack of profanity, and it is very mellow. It almost has country music vibes during the chorus section. The vocal harmonies are very well done, and the immitation of a baby that JB does at the end is pretty hilarious. "Destiny", I'm convinced, is just filler. The band says 'They must pay the rent with their rock!' and plays some powerchords with a somewhat lo-fi heavy tone. Still, at only 37 seconds long, it isn't that big of a filler piece. You may remember "History" from the old HBO series. It's not just a list of bullcrap they've done in the past, but it's also a chronicaling of their rise to power. The fast strummed acoustic riffs on this song sound better than ever, and the acoustic tone throughout the whole album is actually extremely good and can always be heard without too much pick noise.
"The Government Totally Sucks" is a typical rocking song with all of the F-bombs making a return to the lyrics. The best part of the song is the second half when they start playing the awesome hippie chords and singing about bringing back the USA. There are only three or four songs that are especially good on The Pick Of Destiny, which is very dissapointing since their debut album - which was 20 minutes longer than this one - was stuffed with gold. If they would have included the orchestral arrangements, and the comedy dialogue like they did on the first album, they could have really made it a lot more enjoyable for the fans and made it a true motion picture soundtrack! "Master Exploder" is an awesome song with the acoustic guitars again being strummed pretty fast, yet there are also heavy guitars behind them which makes the song sound pretty heavy. JB does his own version of the heavy metal falsetto rise at the beginning, and continues to sing about how he doesn't need a microphone and his voice is powerful... The coolest part of the song are the guitar arpeggio harmonies through the latter half. As a whole, it's definitely one of the cooler songs on the album and is not filler. "The Divide" starts out with some dialogue from JB saying, 'What's it gonna be, Kyle? You've got to decide... tits, or destiny?' to which Kyle responds with the obvious answer. The song then breaks into 9 seconds of heavy riffing similar to what you would hear on the last album, and immediately links into possibly the silliest song on the whole album...
"Papagenu (He's My Sassafrass)" is the first song that really has spoilers from the movie in the lyrics, so they won't be mentioned - however, the squeals and screams from the band and the Sasquatch people are very funny, and the 'ooh-la la' vocal arrangements are pretty goofy, but when combined with the drums, guitars, and the flute, it really becomes the most hilarious song on the whole album. It's like little fairies dancing around in a candy store or something. Similar to "The Government Totally Sucks", the song whips into an acoustic chord progression at the end that is really cool but completely different than what was in the song before that, so the transition is a bit rough. It's a very cool and funny song with a nice rock 'n' roll solo by KG near the end. "Dude (I Totally Miss You)" is a sad ballad that yet again holds some kind of spoiler - I'm guessing KG runs away at some point and leaves JB all alone, leaving him to play this sad acoustic ballad and sing these sad lyrics which happen to have a lot of F-bombs in there, again. It may be about KG being gone, yet in reality, KG supplies a cool acoustic solo near the beginning, and also great vocal harmonies as well. Although the song is quite serious, JB still sees a chance to put in a ridiculous little vocal scat, which will probably make you laugh at least once when you hear it. The next two songs, "Break-In City" and "Car Chase City" are two generic hard-rocking chase songs. There are a lot of cool riffs, and vocal lines throughout the two songs, and the lyrics are, again, pretty silly. There's a great fast solo in "Break In-City" that is probably the highlight of the song. "Car Chase City" starts out like Judas Priest's "Painkiller", and then swoops down into more generic heavy rockin' riffs. I think at this point, you realize that the lyrics are goofy in every song, so it need not be mentioned again! JB tries to do heavy metal vocals at one point yet sounds more like Cartman from South Park, which was probably intentional.
"Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown)" is just a tiny bit better than "Kickapoo", but they are the two especially epic songs on the album - that's right - only two! It features Dave Grohl, the guy who handles the drum duties, doing "demonic vocals" which you fellows may know as growls. There's a lot of profanity in this one too, but the lyrics seem to follow the story a lot more. The devil is complete, and says the world is his.. So the D challenge him to a rock off. The funny thing is, the devil actually rocks a lot harder than the D did, and he was going to take KG to hell to be his little bitch but they break his horn and send him back to hell, or something. It's hard to tell what is going on without having seen the movie... The devil tosses out a cool rock solo, and really trashes hard during his section of the rock off, and even his lyrics are hilarious throughout the song. When the D's part starts, KG playings a sad acoustic part and sings about how they are doomed. They recap stuff they've been through to get where they are, and say it's time to blow the devil down... Then they start rocking acoustically and eventually enter the most awesome rocking you've ever heard from the D. Choir vocals rise up as the D continue to rock hard with their acoustics, and some heavy guitars in there too, and their rock off section ends with a few bars of power metal. Needless to say, it's probably the best song on the album, yet there are a lot of good ones on there, and a lot of not so good ones... It's an album that fans will have to spend some time with before they can appreciate it, and non-fans will probably only like those two songs ("Kickapoo", "Beelzeboss"). Not as good as their self-titled debut, but it isn't half bad..
7.5/10
UM's Review Rating Scale
Official Tenacious D Website
Official Epic Records Website
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