Review Summary: The death of nostalgia.
Oh, James Rolfe. There was a time when your name carried real weight on the internet. A time when your YouTube series ‘The Angry Video Game Nerd’ won awards and was firmly placed in IMDb’s Top 250 TV Shows. You had a film school degree, you had unmatchable knowledge on cult B-movies, you owned top-notch indie equipment, and you even retrofitted your basement into a functioning VHS rental store (seriously, it appears in the music video for “Never Surrender”). If there was one YouTuber ready to crash through the gates of Hollywood, it was you. You were once hailed as the guy to watch, a pioneer of web-based creative filmmaking back when YouTube was mostly a repository for 14-second cat videos and teenagers falling off skateboards in 144p. You were even referred to as “the next Kevin Smith,” which actually seemed plausible in 2007. And now, because the indie film dream didn’t pan out, you’ve decided it’s TIME to pivot to music. Not just any music, but Rex ***ing Viper.
For those unaware from the above tribute-of-sorts, James Rolfe is the man behind Cinemassacre, also known as the Angry Video Game Nerd, who took the internet by storm in 2007 for being one of the first to see YouTube as a potential outlet for creative filmmaking, building a massive fanbase in the process. Well, 20 years later, he’s playing in a really awful cover band. And I mean really, really awful. No, James never became the filmmaker he had always hoped, so why not become a rockstar? Well, it’d help to play in a good band first. Rex Viper is a power metal band (or “power rock” as Rolfe calls it) that dabble solely in taking cheesy hard rock anthems from “Now That’s What I Call The 80’s” compilation CDs, and then mish-mashing them with 8-bit NES video game scores. And mish-mash is really the best term, because these styles barely fit together. “Eye of the Tiger Electronics,” for example, takes the famously overplayed Rocky III anthem and inexplicably fuses it with lyrics based on Tiger Electronics handheld games…y’know, Tiger Electronics? Anyone reading this nostalgic for those, or even remember that those are? Or “Nintendo Power of Love”, which merges the hit Huey Lewis song from Back to the Future with the 8-bit score from the NES Back to the Future video game. Shockingly, this song almost works, but why would anyone need to hear that?
As you’ve probably figured, the amount of people who seek enjoyment from this is limited. The concept, for what it’s worth, is clear enough: 80s nostalgia squared. I guess the idea is that, hey, Rolfe reviews bad 80’s video games on his YouTube channel, so why not cover the songs from those games and make them “kewl”? But if you're wondering how many times you can layer mindless shredding over the Double Dragon theme before it all collapses into a puddle of musical backwash, the answer is about one. And even that’s pushing it.
Of course, these are James Rolfe’s songs…at least in branding; his face is blasted on the album art, he constantly declares this as his passion child. And yet, when you listen to the actual tracks, you’d be forgiven for wondering if he wandered into the wrong studio session. He’s rhythm guitar, and he’s buried so deep in the mix he may as well be playing from his video game basement two stories down. At most, he provides a few simple power chords beneath the migraine-inducing lead vocals, which are delivered by a frontman who sounds like he just learned what pitch is and immediately declared war on it. While this frontman has some pipes, or had them probably when the 3DO still cost $799 (now THERE’S a nostalgic fact for you!), he is now fighting his own throat in each song, often forcing himself into an ugly falsetto to hit sharp high notes. At certain points he seems genuinely out of breath, dripping with sweat, and exhausted by the toll this music is taking on his body. The choruses of “Mighty Wings and Hadoukens” and “You’re The Best” have him sounding like he is in literal agony trying to those high notes, like there’s no way he wouldn’t be coughing blood after each take. The obvious solution would be to down tune these songs, but much like his pitch, that has fallen on deaf ears.
The mixing, meanwhile, is an act of aggression. The lead guitarist, who is admittedly probably the most talented man here, is either cranked to the point of static or dropped entirely below the blaring MIDI synths, and he often succumbs to his own ego and mindlessly shreds during parts not necessary. Programmed drums plod along like they were ripped from by a 40-year-old Sega Genesis, often with very simple beats stolen straight from Lars Ulrich’s playbook, or obnoxious fills one does when they’re trying to show off without having much to say. The bass guitar, and often the rhythm guitar with it, is usually nonexistent, leading to a very flat, tinny, and amateurish mix. And yet, what’s most baffling about Rex Viper isn’t just that the music is bad, though it is, abysmally so, but that you start to wonder if it’s deliberate. Rolfe is a guy with a film degree, a long history of meticulous video production, and presumably, the capacity to recognize what competent audio engineering sounds like. Which makes this whole endeavor feel like performance art. Or a prank. Or a very sad chapter in a once-interesting creator’s slow transformation into the kind of guy who says things like “power rock” with a straight face. Y’know, Rolfe said in an interview that Rex Viper is “music you want to work out to”, even though half of the band’s members are pushing 300lb. So, not even they believe in their own music.
It’s tempting to dismiss all of this with a shrug and a joke: “Oh well, just some 40-year-old nerdy dads having fun”. I truly wish I could say that. I don’t hate James, I want him to do better. If you’ve found your midlife crisis passion for being a rockstar, by all means; cool. But don’t you want to be a band that’s NOT Rex Viper?? The sheer earnestness with which Rex Viper seems to think they’re “melting faces off”, as declared in the album’s hilariously unaware spoken word intro track, makes it hard to laugh along. The songs aren’t funny, they aren’t catchy. They’re not even particularly nostalgic unless you grew up playing Contra hooked up to a blown out speaker in a Braum’s bathroom. Don’t know what Braum’s is? Well, that’s something I’m nostalgic for. Maybe I’ll make a Braum’s inspired “power rock” album next. Anywho, what we are left with is the slow-motion implosion of an online legend, rebranding himself as a background character in his own unremarkable and unlistenable misadventure. Once a visionary, now a rhythm guitarist in a band nobody asked for, playing songs nobody needs, mixed in a way nobody should have to hear. You’re the best around, nothing’s ever gonna keep you down, you say? I beg to differ.
