CD Reviews

Flight of the Concords

Sub Pop

By MIKAEL WOOD | April 29, 2008

2.0 Stars

Given my choice of late-night HBO comedy series about foul-mouthed acoustic duos with inflated senses of self-importance, I’ll take Tenacious D over Flight of the Conchords every time. There’s no doubting that Bret and Jermaine — the two New Zealanders attempting to find fame in New York City — are funny fellows; “The Most Beautiful Girl (In the Room),” in which they toy with R&B slow-jam conventions, is worth its weight in YouTube clips. But as a musical concern, the Conchords can’t hold a candle to the D, a shortcoming that’s much more apparent on this homonymous CD than it is on TV. Although producer (and Beck pal) Mickey Petralia fleshes out Bret and Jermaine’s stripped-down ditties with loads of cute electropop details, few of these tunes stick in your head like Tenacious D’s insanely catchy arena-folk jams. Some of that is attributable to the Conchords’ deadpan sensibility. Perhaps they think that out-and-out catchiness would spoil the joke, but surely there’s a more memorable way of making the point.

Topics: CD Reviews , Entertainment, Tenacious D, Flight of the Conchords, More

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