Mad Spanner – Wrong Shade Of Orange – Album Review

Comedy metal albums. They’re an odd breed aren’t they! How many good ones can you honestly recall? Spinal Tap, Bad News, Tenacious D, Lawnmower Deth and anything featuring Brian Posehn may spring to mind and while comedy and hard rock/heavy metal are hardly strangers – let’s face it, metal is fuckin’ ridiculously over the top funny when you really think about it – it’s pretty damn hard to balance the two effectively.

Which leaves us staring Mad Spanner in the eye (which could be dangerous depending on just how mad this spanner really is!) and wondering if our sides are going to split with laughter or our eyes are going to roll in abject indifference.

Shitty production aside, Mad Spanner are a relatively amusing comedy thrash/punk/grind hybrid that are definitely in this for the shits and giggles and, as they so succinctly put it, “make a loud racket [and] aggravate the boring status quo”. Well, they certainly do that!

“Forced To Use A Shitty Drum Machine” sums up Mad Spanner’s current percussion predicament and showcases a knowing irony while the deathly growls which adorn the grinding “Massacre Of The Flies” feels more like a ‘real’ song as opposed to a piss-take; suggesting Mad Spanner may have a future in penning 1 minute blasts of primal crust punk/grindcore?!

It’s all relatively good fun, with songs about perverts, seagulls, avocado’s and bum sex making up the bulk of the album but it’s brutal honesty time. Like a 15,000 calorie Dominos pizza challenge, it’s almost impossible to get through Wrong Shade Of Orange in one sitting.

Fortunately, songs such as the 49 second punk extravaganza “I Was Caught Shitting In A Plastic Bag” and, if you’re a grumpy bastard like this writer, the apt social commentary of “Get Off Your Bastard Phone (You anti-Social Dickhead)” provoke the required mirth related response. But, it’s just not quite enough to salvage the mis-fires that make this effort hard going at times.

Still, mad as a box full of ’em! 5/10

You can name your price for Wrong Shade Of Orange on Mad Spanner’s bandcamp page!