(Grand Royal)
Whether or not you like Ween's music, I think it's fair to say you can at least appreciate their ambitious nature. Not only have the duo of Gene and Dean Ween charted many different paths in their albums, from country to psychedelia, but they each have other diverse projects as well. The Moistboyz is Dean Ween and Guy Heller from False Front, and this pair of adventurous musicians have banded together once again as nothing less than a full-blown metal band.
II clocks in at barely over a half hour with 10 songs, but they are amazingly all the same. A half hour spent with the Moistboyz left me feeling as though I'd listened to two albums by anyone else. The first track "It Ain't Rude" is rather quiet and ominous, discussing a guy's sexual confusion, and "American Made and Duty Free" is a country tune left off of the last Ween album, but the rest of II is just plain loud. Amps cranked to 10, distortion and wah wah pedals maxed out, reverb effects and crazy overdubs, all are put to good use as Dean and Guy (calling themselves Dickie and Mickey Moist here) deconstruct heavy metal's old sexist attitudes and musical cliches.
Emphasis is on power and strength as the pair scream lyrics that at first sound sexist or racist but are obviously satiric in nature. I'm sure a song like "Man of the Year", taken wrongly would be highly offensive to Jews. It contains lyrics like "You say you're a jew/Well himey I'm a priest..." and "spittin' on my palm before I shake your hand/I'll drag the whore of Babylon acoross your holy land." A direct anti-Semitic attack? No, it's clearly an attack on that kind of ridiculous attitude. Later in the song they explain the fallacy of putting people in power who have closed minds (Hitler, etc.). The lyrics pull no punches but I found myself appreciating their loud and clear approach. "Crank" deals with drug abuse, "American Made and Duty Free" takes a darkly humorous approach to sexism by completely overdoing it, and "Second Hand Smoker" is an over-the-top ode to smoking's manly aspects.
Yes, there are a lot of interesting commentaries here and I'm afraid the listening public just wouldn't understand the irony of the lyrics. I found the album witty; others will assuredly find it childish, clumsy and of course offensive. Words aside, these guys play a mean rock song. Powerful attacks on the riffs will leave even the offended folks banging their heads, and the melodies themselves are surprisingly catchy despite their distortion or volume. I've had the album's last track, "Good Morning America", in my head for weeks and it won't go away.
Beware the possible objections to content and swearing, but try to look past them. I found this album to be funny, clever in its dead-on sendups of stupid people, and listenable to boot. I look forward to Moistboyz' next move.
