It’s Tenacious D time! Actor Jack Black’s original project with Kyle Gass began as a short-lived HBO series before becoming a full-fledged band, culminating in 2006’s Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny movie, which was a flop. But The D rose again six years later with Rise of the Fenix (QRO review), and now rise again another six years later with Post-Apocalypto.
First off, one needs to be aware that, just as the album Pick of Destiny was basically an accompaniment to the movie, Post is an accompaniment to The D’s self-made online cartoon series (see below). The album isn’t as extensive as the cartoon, skipping a good bit of the spoken plot, so it kind of jumps around. It also obviously doesn’t have the hilarious visuals, particularly The D’s own drawings of penises and more (as NSFW as poorly drawn cartoons can be).
Unfortunately, this also means that the songs are very specific to the mock-post-apocalyptic story, and not as universal as, say, “Low Hanging Fruit” or “Hard Fucking”. There are still some spoken interstitials that are quite funny, but of course lose their punch after repeated listens. However, all D albums have had these, and such previous comedy spoken pieces as “Classical Teacher” and “Inward Singing” have stood the test of time.
Post-Apocalypto ranges from its opening theme song (and closing reprise) to songs about “HOPE” (a two-headed dog), going into space in “TAKE US INTO SPACE”, leaving space in “FUCK YO-YO MA” (which also serves as the ‘Black leaves less famous Gass behind’ of this record), and, of course, “MAKING LOVE”. The D’s deliberately juvenile take on sex runs throughout the record (and even more so in the cartoon series), and it might be a little retrograde in this day & age, but always heartfelt.
The back half of Post is almost exclusively songs sung by other characters in the series (voiced/sung by Black, of course), including enemies like “DADDY DING DONG” and “JB JR RAP”, as well as ally (and wanna be third D) “ROBOT” and “turd whistle” Donald Trump Jr.’s turnaround “COLORS”. While some stand out well, particularly the rap from Jack Black’s evil son from the future, it’s not the full D that you’re looking for.
After doing a television show, movie, jazz (QRO photos), and even regular albums, it was only a matter of time before Tenacious D did their own web series, and accompanying album. Post-Apocalypto may be more D than you can handle, but it’s great that they’ve returned to “SAVE THE WORLD”.
Below see the six installments of the Post-Apocalypto web series:
