Music as a medium allows for many avenues of expression. This includes hilarious and awesome soft metal by Jack Black and Kyle Gass’s love child, Tenacious D. Rock and viscous rifts collide for a head-banging experience of humor, devils and music. 

Starting the band in 1994, the group travelled to many different dive bars playing for small crowds. It wasn’t until 2001 that they got their first album on the shelves, the self-titled “Tenacious D.” 

They followed this with the 2007 “Pick of Destiny” soundtrack to the movie of the same name. The film followed a young Jables, played by Jack Black, who quested to discover a guitar pick that was rumored to be the devil’s tooth and reach rock fame. It was a failure and joked about constantly in their next album, “Rise of the Phoenix.”  

Well known for their vulgar absurdist comedy and guitar themes, critics have dubbed them a mock rock band. Their upcoming album, which has been teased on their website with an animated trailer, foretells a rebirth of the tarnished second album. There are rumors of an animated part two to their original “Pick of Density” story.  

The duo constantly uses cheap green screen animation for the background of their music videos, which adds to the humor and overhanging joke regarding the two; out of shape, balding, middle-aged men living with unstoppable sexual prowess is a jest that never gets old. My favorite is the “Rise of Phoenix” song, which mimics a rough cut of the music video, using poor unfinished graphics, broken choppy animations and stunt fails.  

The D shall return in a metallic combo of rock and midlife crises, so keep your ears to the ground for the rhythmic hum of this band. Words cannot describe their awesome power, so take these lyrics instead, “I don’t care / As long as we get there / We’ll start anew /And you can get a new Tenacious D tattoo.”