Album Reviews by Zac - The Good and Evil
Zac Martin | Staff Writer

In honor of Halloween, this edition of Good and Bad has been dubbed Good and Evil!

GOOD

For the good portion, I have chosen the first album by the band voted "most likely to be mistaken for a folk duo, but then rock your socks," Tenacious D. And let me tell you, my socks have never been quite this rocked before, ever.

The D, as the kids call them, is comprised of Jack Black (who you may know from "High Fidelity" and "Saving Silverman") and Kyle Gass (the magician from the bar scene in "Saving Silverman"). The duo has been together for about 7 years now, and you may recognize them from their short-lived HBO series, any number of guest appearances on show ranging from Saturday Night Live to Comedy Central’s Premium Blend. They’ve even toured with the Foo Fighters and performed at the HFStival in D.C. this year.

But for this album, they don’t limit themselves to just two guys with oversized guitars, oh no—they built an outstanding band to back them up: on drums is Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters/Nirvana fame, Page McConnell from the defunct hippie mainstay Phish holds down the keyboards and The Vandals guitar maestro Warren Fitzgerald handles all of the electric axe work. The rock star norm can’t even contain the full power that is Tenacious D, though—this album is more of a rock and roll symphony.

Of course, as evident by this article so far, this album is full of silly, vulgar humor. The first single, "Wonderboy," is the epic tale of Wonderboy and his young sidekick Nastyman, the greatest superhero team to ever pick up guitars and rock you. The song itself is beautiful as well—JB does things with his voice that I wouldn’t have believed possible had I not heard them and the "dueling" guitar work of KG and Warren is beautiful.

This dichotomy of great songs with silly lyrics keeps through the whole album— barely a song goes by without at least one mention of sex. JB almost eclipses Ben Folds with his ability to slip f--k into what would be a completely clean pop song. The track listing reads like a Sigmund Freud notepad, in fact, with names like "Hard F--king," "F--k her Gently," and "Double Team," amongst others.

The band also appeases its long-standing fans with full-band versions of classics like "Tribute," a tribute to the best song in the world, which was originally played to the tune of "Stairway to Heaven," "Lee," a tribute to one of the band's good friends and webmaster, and "Explosivo," a ripping fast ode to nonsense and Satan.

Speaking of the dark lord, the D does seem a bit infatuated with Satan—the controversial album cover features the boys with horns, standing on a pentagram with a bizarre Satanic-looking character over their shoulders (not to mention the back cover, with babies in place of KG and JB). I guess that will have to do for a Halloween connection for the good section, but stay tuned for our special Evil section in honor of rock’s scariest shockers.

EVIL

Okay, so I’m probably the one person alive who’s not a "disillusioned teen" and actually enjoys this next band, but I’m here to make my stand.

I, Zachary Thorin Martin, like Slipknot.

But I’m not here to defend my tastes—just to say that despite my initial misgivings, the new album from Iowa’s own mask-wearing madmen actually impressed me. Whenever I’m in a mood for angry music that doesn’t require much (if any) thought, this album comes very close to first on the list of things I reach for. Of course if you like your ire with substance, this is not the album you should run to.

The ‘knot does what they do well, but unfortunately what they do isn’t make art. Loud and fast is their forte, as evidenced in the first release "Left Behind," an angry (duh.) mosh-fest which features one of the weirdest videos (right up there with Aphex Twin and Death in Vegas) ever to grace late night MTV. The song contains the lyric "I can’t stand your thalidomide robot face/Don’t even try it! You had to be a liar just to infiltrate me/I’m still drowning!" which is the most thought-provoking thing on the album—even I had to look up "thalidomide." The rest of the songs are fairly easy to understand. Without any kind of description, try and guess what "People=Shit," "The Heretic Song," and "I am Hated," are all about.

I will say one good thing about the musicality of the album—drummer (the one behind the actual drum set). Joey Jordison, a.k.a. #1, lays down some pretty impressive work on this album. As a drummer myself, I can’t even imagine both of my feet moving in unison at the speeds he reaches. The "custom percussionists" add a lot of weight to the band, in my opinion. The music redefines heavy with these three going at it full tilt. I imagine the stage presence must be chaotic at best.

So if you’re looking for a good and heavy metal sound for this Halloween—look no further than "Iowa" by Slipknot. And check out that case as well—if they can’t write a musical masterpiece, these guys sure can throw together some good- n’-creepy album art.