The Severed Cortex

Link: http://www.psychostick.com/

In these tough economic times there's one thing that all of us could use and that's a good laugh.   Sure, you can try something above board and family friendly, but when you really need a laugh and all else fails break out the Psychostick my friends.   If you can lower yourself to the sorts of things that a 14 year old boy would find funny, and many of my friends can, Psychostick will bring about much guffawing.  Not that my friends guffaw a lot.

Since the dawn of recorded music, pretty much every genre music has produced a comedic version of themselves.   While earlier generations were stuck with listening to something as awful as Ray Stevens, the latest generation has a plethora of comedic song talent available from Asylum Street Spankers to Tenacious D.   Somewhere mixed in there is the awful, awful genre of filk music.  Ugh.  Filk aside, outside of the obvious Spinal Tap the metal genre is suprisingly missing from the group of self flagellators.  I chalk that up to the fact that metal guys have no humor.   Just like joggers, you never see a death metal guy smiling.  At least not without fresh blood dripping from his lips.  Stupid joggers and their hunger for blood.  I mean death metal guys.  OK, I don't really know that for sure.  I just heard the Reverend Horton Heat say that death metal guys eat brains.  Psychostick is not death metal, instead they refer to themselves as humorcore.  That definition would be music without brains.

Under normal circumstances I would have alienated any self respecting audience with the threat of juvenile humor and metal music.  For those that have gone on the ride so far, ask yourself this.  Have I let you down before?  (And for those that answered yes, I still say that Abba Greatest Hits thing is cool.)   Trust me though, this metal humor works, or at least for most of the massive release of 18 songs it does.  Ha, ha.  I said massive release.  Be prepared for more.  It really is that juvenile, but lost in all these 'humor' songs is the underlying fact that this band can flat out play.  They skewer a wide variety of metal music and do them all with legitimate playing skills.   Unfortunately no one cares about that stuff so we'll get back to the juvenile lyrics of shitlick, penis stink, and anal butter.  Psychostick lives by the sword of boob humor, blonde humor, beer humor, and body odor humor, and they package it all in one handy CD.   Along the ride they occasionally die by that same sword.  Case in point are all the food parodies they cook up.  In my opinion they have far too many songs about food, but even I have to admit Weird Al did a great job with My Bologna, Eat It and I'm Fat.  Yo, ding dong man, ding dong, ding dong, yo.  Still makes me laugh.  Psychostick really delivers the goods with This is Not a Song, It's a Sandwich and The Hunger Within, but fall far short with Orange and Do You Want a Taco? As it turns out, no, I do not.  But I do want most of this CD.  Caffiene, Shower, and Girl Directions, despite its overwhelming use of the f word, are all pretty effin' funny.   And the best song may be the satirical parody of formula music titled #1 Radio $ingle.   It's not quite as entertaining as Robbie Fulks Fountains of Wayne Hotline, but it does take a much deeper stab at the industry at large.  And for that alone I like Psychostick.

OK, who am I fooling?  I like the juvenile stuff mostly and so does my 14 year old nephew.  Lighten up a little.  So should you.