Review Summary: Coral the Merknight vs. SEARANTULA, as their name suggests, are probably worth a miss.
Coral the Merknight vs. SEARANTULA is possibly the worst thing in the history of anything ever.
Okay that’s probably more than just a bit disingenuous but there were times while listening to
It Weaves a Web of Metal where I genuinely believed it. As a comedy metal duo, Travis Orbin (of Darkest Hour) and Adōn Fanion (of Ghost Ship Octavius) don’t quite cut it, despite clearly being quite talented on their instruments.
Sadly, this is immediately apparent in the introduction track “Disclaimer”, which has an instrumental that sounds like something straight out of an Agalloch album. However, instead of being blasted with epic atmospheric metal, a cringe-y spoken word comes in, sounding like a bad hip-hop skit. Then comes “Videogames > Girlfriends”, which is actually an alright slice of melodic metalcore that would perhaps be tolerable if it weren’t for the awful lyrics and clean vocals. Sadly, though, the song is still one of the best the album has to offer. “500 + 500 = 1000 Miles”, on the other hand, is probably the worst thing here, a terrible metal cover of an overplayed pop song (Vanessa Carlton’s “1000 Miles”, along with a brief section of The Proclaimers’ “I Would Walk 500 Miles” thrown in for good measure).
At this point it is perhaps worth noting that comedy music is always tough to evaluate, as what people find funny is really subjective and it wouldn’t be fair to fail to mention that the comedy on this album does absolutely nothing for me. I didn’t so much as nose exhale once throughout the 40 minute runtime. There is the possibility that if you find Coral the Merknight vs. SEARANTULA even the least bit funny there could be something for you on this album. With that said, the music here is generally rather abysmal too, with the exception of a few cuts here and there. One of these exceptions is “Tragedy” which would probably be a pretty great song minus the lyrics. Admittedly it sounds somewhat like Avenged Sevenfold in a few parts, which could go either way depending on your taste, but it’s an entertaining track and it feels like it could have been a serious song written for a serious album if a couple of adjustments were made.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are the covers. I personally don’t find metal covers of non-metal songs to be amusing in the least and the ones we are presented with here are particularly heinous. The aforementioned “500 + 500 = 1000 Miles” is terrible but an equally big offender is “Under the Sea”. While admittedly a fun track, it’s novelty simply for the sake of it; it’s the type of song that perhaps could have gone viral on YouTube but as a song on an album it just feels completely ridiculous (yes, even on a comedy album). “ScarJo(lene)”, on the other hand, is middle of the road; it’s a good cover but not interesting enough to stand on its own and not bizarre enough to be funny.
“Whip My Hair” is probably the closest the album comes to a decent funny/good ratio but it’s still not much to go on. It does sound a bit like something Devin Townsend could potentially do (thinking back to his Punky Brüster album) so it’s probably one of the most redeeming qualities of the record. Sad though it is, the album’s outro track “Fish Outta Water” is probably the best piece of music on offer here, along with the instrumental of the album’s intro song. It brings to an end a disappointing release that doesn’t have many redeeming features.
It Weaves a Web of Metal is probably not as bad as it initially seems (like, say, the worst thing ever) but there is nothing here that manages to pull it out of the fire either. It’s an album that seems to exist only to serve as an outlet for the band members’ less serious sides; asking fans to interpret this as meaningful art is another story entirely. Compared to similar projects such as Dethklok and Tenacious D, the comedy here is lifeless and unfunny and the music is uninspired. Coral the Merknight vs. SEARANTULA, as their name suggests, are probably worth a miss.
