ZIMMERS HOLE

Rip-roarin' lowbrow good times from what amounts to STRAPPING YOUNG LAD without Devin Townsend (and I wouldn't put ten bucks down on his not actually being credited singer "The Heathen", either). Imagine the grinding post-nuke riffs of Jed Simon and Byron Stroud and the thundering apocalypse of Gene Hoglan on drums, only on vocals you have a gibbering idiot singing about everything from how much metal rules, to the glories of rocking out and riding, to the delights of random blowjobs ("Anonymous Esophagus" is the undisputed song title of the year) and literacy.

The thing is, the gibbering idiot can sing, switching in an instant from cod-piece-constricting power metal shriek to death metal bellow with equal flair. As sixth-grade as the lyrics are, and as stale as novelty records can quickly get (quick, name the last time you listened to SCATTERBRAIN on purpose),ZIMMERS HOLE manages to celebrate the glories of heavy metal even as they lampoon them mercilessly. Just to complete the circle of satire, Nathan Explosion of cartoon DM band DETHKLOK guests on the short, sweet and perversely hilarious "The Vowel Song", adding the ironic-hipster seal of approval to a record that's pretty overt about making real metal fans out of mockers.

These guys don't miss a trick, from the end-of-song key change in "Anonymous Esophagus" to the windswept power metal "glory" of "Hair Doesn't Grow On Steel" — if they so chose, they could probably pick one style out of the grab-bag of metal conventions they lampoon here and make a straight-faced album that'd knock that sub-genre's fans on their asses. Even their massive talent will probably not save this album from banishment to the Valhalla of the shelf after a few triumphant listens, but it's obvious that ZIMMERS HOLE (like the best satire in any form) attacks from a place of love, not to mention a fount of knowledge about which they mock that could only be compiled through a lifetime of being… well… in league with Satan.