I chose Dethklok to be this month’s Band fo the Month, even though by most definitions they aren’t a real band. All the work is essentially done by two guys, and credited to five cartoon characters. The band behind it may be fake, but the music is real and in fact, The Dethalbum is the highest charting extreme metal album ever. Not too bad for cartoons. But! Dethklok isn’t the only band of its kind.
Indeed, the Sons of Butcher are also a band based on a cartoon, the biggest difference between them and Dethklok being that the main characters from Sons of Butcher are (based on) the people that actually write and play the music, so the band can tour to promote both their show and their music. The SOBs have been around for two seasons, and they aren’t currently scheduled for a third, but hopefully the rabid fan demand for more will change that. Anyway, with both seasons of the show have come corresponding CDs. Their eponymous debut album is what we’re going to be looking at today.
Sons of Butcher is a pretty fun CD, but has one glaring flaw. Obviously enough, the bulk of the material present is pulled directly from the show. The songs are extended and fleshed-out as compared the the snippets that appear in the show, but still end up being rather short, the longest track clocking in at 2:28. Having twelve tracks and only ten real songs (the CD begins and ends with filler tracks), it’s pretty damn short. Just over 20 minutes, to be precise.
On the upside, most of the tracks are enjoyable in some respect. Most of them are hilarious if you know the context (they’re almost all written about situations in the show), and a few are funny on their own. Of course, it’s an off-humour, so unless you find a song about, ahem, going “in through the out hole” funny, maybe it’s not going to be quite up your alley. On the other hand, the music itself is of good quality, especially considering that it’s from a TV show. The various riffs and baselines are respectable and have some level of integrity to them. Ricky’s solos are pretty wicked too, and fit the party rock/light metal tone of the CD really well. Being that none of the main characters are drummers, the drums remain somewhat neglected on most tracks, and for the majority of the time are just there to help keep the rhythm and make the sound complete.
So yeah. Sons of Butcher is a realy cool album, and I recommend it. It’s not quite as epic as going to see the SOBs live would be (as I’ve heard), but a good bit of merch for the fans anyway. If you order it off the official website, Sol, Ricky, and Doug will autograph it and send you a free meat-shaped air freshener too (comes with every order!), so that’s probably the best way to procure it (that and the only music store in my area that carried SOB goods closed down a while ago). If you’re thinking about checking out one of my recommendations, I’d probably say to look for The Dethalbum first, but that’s only because Sons of Butcher suffers from being incredibly short, and the fun ends way too soon.