With an album title like that, I’m not certain one can expect a review more favorable than this…
Some fifteen years since their last release, comedy metal troupe Green Jelly returns with a new record, this one still somewhat metallic but regrettably light on the actual comedy. (If you care, the band insists that their name is still pronounced “Green Jello,” cease and desist be damned.) After scoring a surprise hit with the claymation video of “Three Little Pigs” way back in 1992, Green Jelly effectively vanished, with follow-up record 333 failing to make any significant dent whatsoever, despite some serious financial investments by the label in the band’s multimedia mayhem. For this reunion, most of the band returns from Jelly‘s halcyon days—errr, “day”—and unfortunately they return without Danny Carey and Maynard James Keenan (both better known as members of Tool). In truth, I doubt anyone was clamoring for a new Green Jelly release, but that’s what makes Musick that much more special to the Jelly, the fact that not only was a new record unexpected, but that it was completely unsolicited and perhaps even explicitly unwanted. This band is, after all, the self-proclaimed “Worst Band Of All Time.”
As goofus as Cereal Killer was, at least it was mildly amusing in a select few moments. By comparison, Musick is just plodding, musically and comically, with little to contribute on either level. As is the case with friends and fellow costumed showmen Gwar, it’s easy for Green Jelly to get mired in their performance schtick, and like Gwar in that band’s worst moments, Musick falls flat beneath its own weight, forgettable and flaccid as it attempts to irritate and to amuse and to rock, achieving only the former in any significant measure. After a suitably Cereal-esque start in the nursery-rhyme-quoting “Sugar And Spice,” Musick collapses rapidly. Alternating between a groovy 90’s alt-metal feel (witness the Manson-isms of “Gefilte Fish”) and a punkier approach (“Geek Girl”), Musick suffers sorely from a lack of interesting material. Hell, there are two songs that revolve around clowns, with “Scroty the Clown” being unforgivably idiotic and “Stabby The Clown” not far behind. Sonically, this Musick is well-recorded and adequately performed, although with nothing approaching flair or flash in either category and certainly nothing that helps redeem the lack of quality songwriting.
Die-hard Jelly fans may find this Musick amusing, but I can’t say I would recommend it to those among you who weren’t exactly pining for a follow-up to the follow-up you forgot followed-up the one hit this band had when you were fifteen years younger…
