Zimmers Hole

Proving time and again that Strapping Young Lad aren’t the only Canadian metal comedians, Vancouver’s Zimmers Hole break into the mainstream with the longest album title of the year. Vocalist the Heathen, the mystery back-up throat on most of Devin Townsend’s projects, joins SYL alums Jed Simon, Byron Stroud and drummer nonpareil Gene Hoglan for 11 tracks of fist-pumping pseudo-brutality. Despite the high-speed attack of the excellent title track, most of the cuts fall into the ruts of established metal acts, like Iced Earth ("1312”), Manowar ("Hair Doesn’t Grow on Steel”) and Pantera ("Fista Corps”). The band address clichéd metal issues like new world orders ("We Rule the Fucking Land”), motorcycles ("Flight of the Knight Bat”) and oral sex ("Anonymous Esophagus”). Hoglan, also skinsman of Dethklok, gets band-mate Nathan Explosion to introduce "The Vowel Song” with a PSA on literacy. With Spïnal Tap’s ham-fisted camp updated for the Ozzfest generation, Zimmers Hole prove that Metalocalypse is completely based in semi-truths — and like SYL, they could care less if fans "get it” or not.