Battle Boys

Musically this album is ok, the dudes can clearly play, and as far as europower goes it's decently riff heavy. Fairly anthemic and all that. Think the better Sonata Arctica songs, the less shit Stratovarius, whatever, with a bunch of other genres thrown in from time to time, some jazzy noodling, a few blasts. You rate this solely on musical content, it maybe gets a high 60s/low 70s, very good for a bad genre, sorta thing, perfectly respectable.

It's just the lyrics man. Parody is fine when it's funny, but it must be a lot harder to do than you'd think; for every Airplane! there's a few million Not Another Teen Movies. When an entire album is just this awkward, brutal exploration of deepest, darkest cringe, enjoyment on any level goes out the window. I'd rather read every tweet George Takei has ever done. I'd rather read the transcript of every pragerU video, sorta thing.

And that's kinda the general gist of the thing summed up really. Inventive enough on a purely musical level, but with a loud, cringy, impossible to avoid bizarro concept about a bunch of preschoolers fighting a penguin, with a lot of talk about strawberry icecream along the way. I feel like I'm not a humour snob, I enjoy dumbass physical comedy, and yelling penis louder than the previous yeller in a crowded shopping centre/restaurant etc is still a good way to pass the time as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, painfully bad all up.