Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 20/11/06
Label: Sony

Beginning "a long-ass f*cking time ago in a town called Kickapoo", the self-proclaimed "greatest rock band on Earth"'s second album presses rewind and transports us back to the mythical crossroads when real life Beavis and Butthead's Jack Black and Kyle Gass formed Tenacious D and fought a dragon (or rather, "sliced his f*cking cockles, with a long and shiny blade") in a battle for the legendary "Pick Of Destiny", also the title of the duo's first movie, due for release later this month.

That this opening track traverses the acoustic folk of "Led Zeppelin III" to the boogie of The Stones' "Brown Sugar" and back again, as well as featuring a cameo from Meat Loaf (as Black's father), says everything about The D's ambition to scratch the itches of rock that other band's can't reach. Over the next 30 minutes, the listener is subjected to everything from Elizabethan madrigals to full-on axe orgies (courtesy of Ronnie James Dio) and encounters both "Car Chase City" and the "Beelzeboss" in a stream-of-metal experience that quickly reverts to a game of 'spot the influence'.

The Who, Manowar, Motley Crue, Twisted Sister and Queen are all present and correct over the 15 mostly one or two minute songs, but with Dave Grohl guesting as sticksman, Tenacious D somehow propel their considerable collective girth beyond mere hero worship. Of course, any rock parody has, by law, to be compared to "Spinal Tap" - what must now be considered the Rosetta Stone of rockumentaries. And, while nothing on "Pick Of Destiny" comes close to the repeat-button hilariousness of "Big Bottom", "Sex Farm" or Derek Smalls' "Jazz Odyssey" (or, come to think of it "F*ck Her Gently", "Tribute" and "Double Team" from their 2001 eponymous debut) there are still laugh-out-loud moments aplenty.

The best of these include the slide guitar whammy bar of "Master Exploder", the recorder-driven singalong of "Papagenu (He's My Sassafrass)" and Black's tribute to his partner, "Dude (I Totally Miss You)". By the time we arrive at "Break In City", meet the aforementioned "Beelzeboss" and finally find the "POD" and reveal "The Metal" ("Grunge tried to kill 'The Metal', but they failed as they were thrown to the ground…") the whole shebang makes some sort of sense. OK, eventually there's too much reliance on devil fingers and Black singing "f*ck", and the narrative will probably be clearer after actually seeing the movie.

But still, "The Pick Of Destiny" is likely to be among the finest cock rock albums about magical plectrums released this year.

    by Adam Webb