Tenacious D is a band that I absolutely loved in middle school. I memorized every word to “Tribute”, “Wonderboy”, and basically every song on the Pick of Destiny soundtrack. Their music is comedy gold, and entirely great musically.

If you don’t know, “The D” is Jack Black and his friend Kyle Gass who started with an HBO series, and then went on to make their debut album, Tenacious D, which features their most popular songs “Tribute”, and “Wonderboy”. They also wrote and acted in Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny: a bomb at the box office, but a hilarious movie nonetheless. After the film, Jack continued to make movies. Now, the duo is back and touring with their new album, Rize of the Fenix.

“Rize of the Fenix” opens the album, and it has this sort of “we’re back!” message with it, and it’s not so much a hilarious epic, but more of an actual song with a few jokes here and there. It’s a great opener, because it houses a range of emotions for D fans. It’s sort of nostalgiac, and it’s also a full force rock track. Overall, this is a great track–not so much a return to form, but a feel-good, back-in-action, hard rock rollercoaster.

“Classical Teacher” is a skit track, not uncommon on D albums. It’s about Jack hiring a Spanish guitar teacher for Kyle. It’s not a complete, laugh-out-loud hilarity fest, but it’s chuckle-worthy.

“Senorita” is again, less funny, even if they were really trying to be. Musically, it’s really catchy, and the writing is excellent. This track definitely stands out to me.

“Roadie” is a song about, obviously, Tenacious D’s roadie. This song is much better when paired with its music video, which stars Danny McBride as the roadie, and was released on Funny or Die this week. The story tells of the miserable job of being a roadie. The roadie is neglected, while the band receives all the glory. It’s pretty catchy at times, and the production is quite solid.

“The Ballad of Hollywood Jack and the Rage Kage” is a retelling of the same story that is portrayed in the video for “To Be the Best”. Other than that, there’s not much to say. It’s not really all that funny, and it’s pretty simple musically.

“To Be the Best” is only one minute long, but it’s awesome. It’s incredibly catchy and replayable. I highly recommend the video that goes with this song as well. The video is a hilarious telling of how the D split after “Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny” had bombed at the box office. Jack became dedicated to becoming famous, while Kyle had gone insane without Jack. Then, when they finally reunite, they’ve forgotten how to play their instruments. Then a training montage with this song, and then they come back and record Rize of the Fenix.

This album doesn’t come anywhere close to the greatness of the first two, but it’s not bad. Had this album been recorded by someone else, it would have been fantastic. However, it’s just a little disappointing on the D’s part. Sure, there are a few memorable tracks here and there, but no “Explosivo” or “BeelzeBoss (The Final Showdown)”. This album feels like a 3.5 out of 5.