Tenacious D - Post-Apocalypto

Tenacious D
Post-Apocalypto
2018
Spotify

I don't know if reviewing "comedy-music" albums is really in the spirit of this blog, but to say I have been waiting for something amazing from Tenacious D would be an gross understatement. After the main theme opens with a bit of rock we have our two heroes discussing the world they have arrived in, a post-apocalyptic world. A nuclear holocaust has occurred and with the help of a two headed dog Kyle and Jack stumble through. The story is of course fraught with trials and tribulations and different mutated characters. The thing that was great about Tenacious D's first album is it mellowed out their more wild fantasy filled songs with tracks about getting "Jr. Bacon Chees". Here though random women they discover on the road and dive into this sexual exploration with them. It worked back in 2003 but in 2018 it could not sound more icky. These are two men who are 49 (Black) and 58 (Gass) respectively still singing goofy songs about getting BJs and Space Scientists building a ship to take them to some wild space station. The story is easy to follow and the songs move the narrative, but it is such a fucking absurd narrative that you can never buy in. When they released "Tribute" it had the comedy, the surprise and all the hallmarks of a great comedy song, but on this album they just feel like they are trying to recreate those magical moments rather than find new ones. Even the shorter skits feel like they are way too long, lingering on bits that never even worked in the first place.

At thirty minutes the album is pretty short, but there are times that it drags so hard. "FUCK YO-YO MA" feels like the ultimate "why?" track while Jack is taken to a heavenly space station and Kyle is left to toil back on radioactive Earth. It only takes one track for Jack to return, and then for him to do a terminator aka Arnold Schwarzenegger impression both skit and song. Black and Gass released an accompanying YouTube series to this record complete with hand drawn animation by Jack Black. Everything is so on the nose, there is zero subtly throughout the entire record. On "marCH" they go on to decry the KKK who have taken over the USA, but if this is truly a post apocalyptic world why would you lean on the political bullshit going on right now? There are so many political messages peppered in this record that it looses it's sense of fun. We get it, shit is pretty bad out there but we have to hear and see it every single day, why not let this be some kind of escape? They just keep hammering the same nail over and over rather than move on. They say never meet your heroes, well don't listen to their new record either.

5.0 out of 10