Comedy and metal are odd bed fellows and the end results can be very hit or miss. I mean before Dethklok you have to go back to Crotchduster and before that possibly Lawnmower Deth ,Green Jelly and even Spinal Tap to find credible examples.  And Arizona’s Psychostick are the very epitome of hit and miss.

The balance has to be can the music behind the humor stand up on its own or does the band simply lean on the comedy too much? In the case of Revenge of the Vengeance it sometimes does, and sometimes both the metal and the comedy fall flat. The metal side is an acceptable  mix of groove metal, thrash and Nu metal as well as spurts of other styles that the band might be parodying,  for example deathcore in the song “So.Heavy”, which actually serves as a hit as it both funny and a good parody of deathcore. (“This chorus is nothing but growling….You scream high…. I scream low….It’s actually kind of exhausting“….double bass in your face! Jog in place!”).

The comedy is various skits (and sort of central b movie theme about the band saving the world from dimensional time warps and celibate women) and songs that are rooted in pop/metal culture or skits in them selves. Sometimes it’s funny,  like the aforementioned “So. heavy,  “Dogs like Socks”, “NSFW”, (yeah the word fuck is indeed funny, especially when shoehorned into various metal styles) “Blue Screen”, “Obey the Beard” or “Bruce Campbell”. And I have to admit the cover of “Danger Zone” from Top Gun, did crack me up a little. Other times it swings and misses big time suck as “President Rhino”,”Quack Kills” or the skit that involves Bill Manspeaker of Green Jelly cussing at neighbors.

Throw in the fact that the guys seem A) genuinely likable and hardworking while not taking themselves or metal too seriously and B) sort of know there way around the genre, makes the release a little easier to swallow, even if comedy and metal will never truly be accepted by the metal masses.

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