Tenacious D

The title track is a fitting metaphor for not just this album, but Tenacious D's bizarre ride through their three releases. Like their career, it starts on a more subdued note before ultimately succumbing to the big budget blunders that made their second album such a riveting disappointment. In the end, the song, like the album, speaks to their attempt to return to the top while realizing that maybe they were never truly there. But that's what's changed: their debut positioned them as the biggest band in the world based on confidence, not merit, and its follow-up exploited the resources success afforded them. Rize of the Fenix sits comfortably in the middle, balancing the comedy with melody almost as well as before, but there's still the sense that Tenacious D are great not because of their goofy boner jokes, but because of how well they fit them into surprisingly solid songs. This is there in spurts on Rize of the Fenix, but the band haven't yet reached the end of their road to redemption.