Ween - La Cucaracha (Schnitzel)
2/5
By: Liam Manley
Four years since their last release, Ween's latest may just leave you wishing they'd kept you waiting that bit longer. Building a career on parodying a wide range of musical genres, they have managed over 23 years to build quite a strong cult following, including endorsements from such alterna-rock luminaries as Josh Homme, whom Dean Ween worked on 'The Desert Sessions' with.
However, with their desire for pastiche they have also managed to consistently produce comedy songs that just, well... aren't ever funny. Though I'm sure it would be just as tedious of me to list their transgression here, I can't help but wonder why they think that satirising bad songs by recording equally bad songs would be at remotely amusing?
Their stabs at cod reggae ('The Fruitman'), trucker rock ('My Own Bare Hands', essentially a barrage of puerile couplets), faux-spiritualism (the vocoder-heavy 'Spirit Walker') and schmaltzy country (just about everything else on this record) are the musical equivalent of two children poking at dog shit with a stick.
I'm left with the impression that any Ween fans that enjoy this record should put the bong down and take a long hard look in the mirror and wonder what they've become - yes, they've become Rik Mayall. Political satirist musician Tom Lehrer was once credited with saying 'political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize'. He didn't say that (well, not exactly), but neither did he say 'Ween killed irony'... but he should have.
Stream five tracks from 'La Cucaracha' HERE.
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