“The World’s First Comic Book Rock Band”

Kirby Krackle is a collaborative project between indie rocker Kyle Stevens (former frontman and songwriter of Seattle based Laymans Terms) and Jim Demonakos (owner of The Comics Stop and head organizer of The Emerald City ComiCon). As you might imagine, comic books and video games have heavily inspired all the songs in this self-titled debut album from the pop-culture fueled pair.

The album starts off strong with the upbeat “Back to the Beginning”; a song about all the dangers facing you in a game of Mario Kart. Bringing out the difficulties of peeling out at the beginning of a race, the dangers of banana peels, and the joy of destroying the race leader with a blue shell.

While the entire album manages to stay on the upbeat side, the tone varies depending on the subject matter. In some cases, it even takes a dark turn. In “Up, Up, Down, Down”, the subject of the song learns too late that sometimes that dream girl can turn out to be a psycho stalker, even if she seems to be the ultimate match for your geeky ways. Still, the song is presented in a such a way as to stay light-hearted and funny.

For anyone who has played the Halo series, especially online or at LAN parties, the song “Teabagged” will strike close to home. The lyrics “…cause I’m killed by little kids / I get so frustrated cause I can never win, / so when I finally kill one I want them to never forget…” show that Kirby Krackle understands the twitch-fest FPS experience that is online Halo matches. Sure it’s fun, but getting killed all the time by twelve year old’s can get really tiresome.

The album also manages to have some more melancholy moments. “One of the Guys” tells the sad tale of the Fantastic Four’s ever loving blue-eyed Thing. Anyone familiar with the series will understand where this song is coming from. The big guy that everyone counts on to take care of business, but who doesn’t really fit in anywhere. The Thing is always struggling to find his place in the world, and the song brings this out very well.

The same is true of the hidden track (untitled), which is about Tony Stark after the recent Civil War events in the Marvel Universe. He is a man that only tried to do what he thought was right, but tore the world apart in the process.

Overall, I really enjoy this album. It reminds me a lot of Jonathan Coulton, one of my favorite singer/songwriters. I recommend the album for video game and comic enthusiasts looking for music about the subjects they love. You can preview the album on the band’s official website, KirbyKrackleMusic.com, and it can be purchased through CD Baby and iTunes. Physical CD’s can be purchased directly from the band’s online store.

Tags: Halo, Kirby Krackle, Mario Kart, music review

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 12th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Music, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.