William Christ & The One Man Orgy (IRL) | ‘Cranium Smashing Stupidity ‘

Staggering upright obstinately and obnoxiously from the ashes of William Shatner and Christorgy is Enniskillen’s most fantastic and foulest band – William Christ And The One Man Orgy. Drawing heavily from such illustrious influences as Belfast’s Lesshelp, their first release “Cranium Smashing Stupidity” is a similar dose (infection intended) of spide-hating, women-despising metallic ludicrousness that we’ve come to expect.

Most of the time when a comedy metal band emerges, it’s a compendium of band in-jokes interspersed with an occasional decent track or two. And “Cranium Smashing Stupidity” is somewhat that. There are 20 tracks on offer here, ranging from the insane grind style of ‘Too Queer For Beer’ to the ludicrously slow and pondering ‘Is That D Flat?’ which in particular illustrates the fact that most of this album sounds as if it was recorded at 4am while under a bewildering array of illicit influences.

Therein lies the downside to this however – there are too many tracks here that contribute nothing apart from the occasional giggle. If this were kept to the best 4 or 5 tracks, it’d be stunningly funny and an essential purchase. Songs like ‘You Make Me Want To Beat Women’ and ‘Mushroom Flavoured Swiss Roll’ are pure and utter unadulterated genius, and ridiculously funny in the live setting too, and make the album practically essential.

Provided you know what a spide is, you have no doubt encountered several specimens of them throughout your life, so the song ‘The Fuckin Lad’ won’t come as any great surprise, but being done in a strong Enniskillen spide accent just makes it even funnier and more cringeworthy to behold. One downside though – in the live setting, ‘Lad’ is sometimes done doomy, and it’s a far funnier experience, so it’s a tiny bit of a downer hearing it done normal here. Well, as normal as inner-city inbreeding gets I suppose.

“Cranium Smashing Stupidity” – and it’s not just Putrefy who get ridiculed here by the way, it’s a good portion of Irish bands in the thanks list too – is a fine example of how to balance silly songs and comedy lyrics with genuinely good musicianship. Although you won’t ever hear the band themselves admit to this. This is stupid done clever, and never as easy as you might think.

- Donal McBrien ::: 05/04/10