I was intrigued when I was told I was being sent this album to review, not having heard anything from “Tenacious D” before, but having seen the numerous guest appearances from Jack Black and Kyle Gass promoting the film kind of whetted my appetite a little. 

Black and Gass initially formed the band “Tenacious D” over a decade ago initially as a comedy routine on one of the many American TV stations and gained some popularity before they released their self titled debut album in 2001.  This, their second album, is a soundtrack from the movie of the same name and tells the fictitious story of how Black and Gass met, formed “Tenacious D”  and later fought a demon (of sorts) to obtain the mythical pick of destiny. 

The opening track on the album, “Kickapoo”, starts with the lyrics “a long ass fucking time ago in a town called Kickapoo”, and takes the listener back to Blacks childhood as his dad, guest vocalist Meatloaf, berates him quite severely for listening to the Devils Music.  Black then prays for guidance to a poster of Ronnie James Dio, and then Dio makes a guest appearance himself as the Rock God and teaches the boy how to Rock.  Confused? Bewildered? I am.  Mind you, the list of guests doesn’t end there, oh no.  Black and Gass have also called upon the skills of Dave Grohl (Nirvana and Foo Fighters) who provides some awesome drumming on “Car City Chase” and also the vocals for the Devil character appearing in “Beelzeboss”.  

It is obvious from the start that this hybrid mix of folk and metal is purely a soundtrack album to accompany the film, and if you haven’t seen the film then the comedic values can be missed.  There are a couple of tracks, “Break In City” and “Car Chase City” that could be good enough to stand alone, but apart from that the rest of the album falls into mediocrity I’m afraid.  With the album following the film so closely it doesn’t allow “T D” to really show what they are capable of, and ties them down to quite a strict set of rules, and to be totally honest, if this album was released without the Movie to back it up, then it would be consigned to the 99p bargain bucket on the day of release. 

I’m not a great fan of soundtrack albums and feel that there has only ever been one great soundtrack album, and that was “Tommy”.  However, if you mark down the comedy moments on this album, mix in Blacks over exuberant use of whatever profanity he feels he can get away with, add to that the fact that there will probably be a huge following of the film and I can imagine that this album will reach some sort of cult status amongst the mid teen kids, and could probably sell quite well.  I could compare them to “Derek and Clive” in the mid to late 70’s – I didn’t know any early/mid teenager in my school that didn’t have a copy of “Live” or “Ad Nauseum”, even though they weren’t all that funny. 

This album would have been best issued as a bonus CD to accompany the DVD when it is eventually released, but we all know record companies want to milk as much money from Joe Public as they can get.  My recommendation would be to go and see the film first, and if you really, really, really like it, then get this CD.  Otherwise, do like any sane person would do, and leave it on the shelf to gather dust. 

I was going to give this release 4/10, purely on the basis of the guest stars and the 2 half decent tracks, but I think that would be insulting to the albums who have previously been given that rating, so on hindsight I am going to be brave, stick my neck on the critics chopping block, and give this release a well deserved 2/10.

Let us know your views on 'Pick Of Destiny'

Track List

Kickapoo
Classico
Baby
Destiny
History
Government Totally Sucks
Master Exploder
Divide
Papagenu (He's My Sassafras)
Dude (I Totally Miss You)
Break In City (Storm The Gate)
Car Chase City
Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown)
POD
Metal