The Rise of the Fenix

Eleven years after their debut album, the D return with a somewhat looser, less structurally-cohesive set of tunes. There are a couple of longer rock opera-style songs on display but many of the shorter tracks (‘Rock Is Dead’, ‘They Fucked Our Asses’ and ‘To Be The Best’) feel truncated and ineffectual. The spoken word interludes, however, are hilarious – to the extent that you wish the pair would lay down their guitars and just wise-crack for a while.
If you are partial to Gass and Black’s puerile humour there is much to savour. ‘Deth Starr’ advocates abandoning Earth in favour of restarting the human race in a massive spaceship built by ‘a nerd’. Closer ‘39’ finds Black chronicling his relationship with an unnamed 39-year-old woman. It juxtaposes imagery of drinking ‘Chardonnay in the setting sun’, and ‘kicking back with my flip-flops on’ with the unsettling revelation that ‘when we text each other, I fiddle with my anus’. It’s actually a song about growing old – and thus, one of the most mature thing the duo have ever written.