Loyola Greyhound

Issue date: 4/29/08 Section: Arts & Society

The two-man band, Flight of the Conchords, is a folk-pop comedy group who have performed on both the "David Letterman" and "Conan O'Brien" shows.

I know your eyes and brains are probably three-quarters of the way to being completely liquefied at this point in the semester, what with finals looming and summer vacation sitting outside of the window mocking you every chance it gets (damn you and your ability to distract me from that 30-page paper that I should have started two months ago instead of two days before it's due at midnight! It's YOUR fault!) , but please bear with me, as I have one last test question for you: When you hear the words "New Zealand," what's the first thing that comes to mind?

Take your time, I'll wait.

Got something yet? No? Well, that's okay; you're not the only person that's had this problem. Before now, the only things that most people would associate New Zealand with were the curious kiwi bird, "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, a frightening sheep-to-people ratio and actor-turned-phone-ninja, Russell Crowe. But now we have another quirky export from the land to the right of the land down under - comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, and their self-titled debut album.

At first, the folk-pop comedy team of Jermaine Clemet and Bret McKenzie seemed to have literally snuck under the radar of mainstream music, when in reality, they've been busy making a name for themselves both at home and stateside since 2005. With performances on "The Late Show with David Letterman" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," their win for Best Comedy Album at this year's Grammys for their EP, "The Distant Future," touring the concert circuit from the Edinburgh Music Festival to the fame South by Southwest Festival in Austin, TX, and the cult following their self-titled HBO series, the title of "comedy juggernaut" just makes sense. But for the people new to the band's work or that might have previously written them off as just another pair of guitar-wielding jokesters with accents, their new album is definitely worth a listen.

All of the tracks on the album come from their television show, which can sometimes be a bit confusing for first-time listeners who might not get the jokes behind tracks like the upbeat, guitar-heavy "Fuda Fa Fa," a 60s-inspired mishmash of badly used French as a way to hit on coffee shop baristas; but the boys have covered such a wide array of topics that it's almost impossible for you to walk away from the album without relating to at least one track. And there is plenty to choose from, based solely on the fact that the Conchords make it a habit to continuously tinker with their music and comedy styles, occasionally taking cues from various genres and decades and seamlessly blending them into their own brand of laughs to suit the mood. On tracks such as the ever-popular "Business Time," which has garnered an unheard of nearly eight million hits on YouTube alone, and "The Most Beautiful Girl In The Room," a late-70s Marvin Gaye-esque funk is used to accompany the awkward reality of modern romance, while the heavily synthesized, 90s-centric cautionary tale, "Inner City Pressure", tries to put a spotlight on the day-to-day crappiness of being broke and living in the city:

Continued...

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