Then there's Psychostick, a band that takes all of that and turns it into a joke - a complex, purposeful, hilarious joke - and so many people love them for it. The band that writes songs about beer, itchy scrotums, and sandwiches has seen tremendous success, especially in recent years. So they decided to take that success and put it to use, asking their fans to help them turn their basement into a legitimate recording studio. Psychostick promised that the campaign's backers would get more than what they asked for when funding this project, and sure enough, they did with IV: Revenge of the Vengeance.
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Album: IV: Revenge of the Vengeance
Artist: Psychostick
Year of Release: 2014
Genre: Heavy Metal, Humorcore, Comedy
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In a world where danger is everywhere,
Where the only currency is fear,
Only one band can save us...
Psychostick.
The album's first four lines, spoken in an awesome movie-trailer-esque voice, immediately will bring a smile to listeners' faces - guaranteed. But then, the music actually starts.
Every single song on this album is hilarious, from Obey the Beard, a song about how awesome beards are, to Quack Kills, a song about the fear of being watched by ducks. Dogs Like Socks' lyrics take things from a dog's perspective, and NSFW only uses two words in the entire song. There's even a song, Choking Hazard, where the lyrics are directly taken from a New York State choking hazard warning sign. And no one can forget the tribute to Bruce Campbell, which makes fun of celebrity worship culture.
But the thing that makes Psychostick stand out is that while their lyrics and songs are so incredibly dumb, it is supported by some truly incredible musicians. Any metal band could write normal lyrics to these songs and they would sound legitimate, which makes this group stand out among other comedy bands like Ninja Sex Party, who are just as funny, but are far less technical and musical. People who don't like metal will love this album for how stupidly funny it is, and the metalheads will love this album because it still rocks hard.
The main feature tracks are also supplemented by hilarious one-minute comedy skits like H-flat, which makes fun of the modern metal trend of down tuning to near-ridiculous levels to make the songs sound heavier, and New to the Neighborhood, which features a grumpy old man cussing out his new neighbors who just wanted to hospitably introduce themselves. Psychostick takes these skits to a whole new level with Dimensional Time Portal, a hilarious epic of a tale about a concert going awry due to a tear in the space-time continuum that will totally make everyone's lives suck... and stuff. Their musical prowess is really shown off here as every single sound effect in the track is done on either a guitar or drums.
The production quality on this album is also incredible for an album made in a basement recording studio and mixed by the guitarist. It even sounds better than their previous releases, which essentially proves that their crowdfunding campaign was not only a huge success, but that the backers' money was put to incredibly good use.
There isn't much to say about each song individually without ruining the joke. This album is by far the funniest Psychostick has ever made, and is most definitely the best comedy album of this year, if not the past few years.
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Video:
<I SWEAR I WILL GET TO IT BE PATIENT GOD DAMNIT>
iTunes: <insert link here> (the album's not officially out as of this writing) (#preorder)
Website: http://www.psychostick.com/
