If 2006’s Tenacious D In 'The Pick Of Destiny' hadn’t bombed at the box office, Jack Black and Kyle Gass would’ve had to invent some other setback to rise (or rize) from on the new Rize Of The Fenix. Black acknowledges the failure of Destiny right in the album’s opening line, as well as the not-all-that-exaggerated assumption that the movie finished off Tenacious D for good.
But rather than dwell on Jack and Rage Kage’s bad fortune, Rize posits The Pick Of The Destiny as motivation for Tenacious D to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is still a good best rock ’n’ roll band. This puts Tenacious D on a furious quest that brings out its best on Rize.
Whereas Tenacious D was an arena-metal record, Rize Of The Fenix touches on a number of styles, including the Spanish guitar finger-picking of “Senorita,” the English folk of “The Ballad Of Hollywood Jack And The Rage Kage,” and the ’80s soundtrack pastiche “To Be The Best.” Rize still has plenty of heft—much of it courtesy of Dave Grohl, who plays drums on nearly every track—but Black and Gass have made an album that is surprisingly varied and even epic at times, particularly the title track, which moves through Iron Maiden dynamics to a gooey, power-pop chorus.
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