By JOHN DALY
Coral the Merknight vs. SEARANTULA is a one-man comedy metal act that once you get past the ridiculousness, you hear the great music. The album It Weaves a Web of Metal is great and great fun!
Coral the Merknight, Travis Orbin (Darkest Hour) and Adōn Fanion (Ghost Ship Octavius) are the band members – we think – but we’ll never know for sure.
What’s a Merknight, Anyway?
Either way the sound is tight. OK, Some of the things that Coral the Merknight sings about are extremely silly, but the cool metal sound is entirely serious. BTW, is a “merknight” supposed to be a male mermaid? I don’t think I want to know.
Coral the Merknight even does a metal version of Vanessa Carlton’s mopey “A Thousand Miles,” that actually makes the song tolerable. Who would have thought singing this teeny bopper song in a gravelly metal voice would actually work?
We love “All This Walking Is Making Me Thirsty,” the song that appropriately enough follows the “A Thousand Miles” cover on the album. It’s all too much.
Porcupines and Refrigerators in Maryland
Then there is “Tragedy,” which is aptly titled because it’s a real depressing song about a porcupine – we think – who meets his fate in the water and then gets stuffed by the rip-off taxidermist.
“Ballad Of The Broken Refrigerator,” is another sad one about a middle of the night discovery that no one wants to find — a fridge gone bad. All the food inside is ruined.
It’s all too much to take. Is this what life in Coral’s town in Maryland is all about? If life were this difficult it woiuldn’t be too bad at all.
What is very positive is that there are still musicians out there who like to have a laugh and poke a little fun at the very serious demise of our lives.
“Whip My Hair” is particularly amusing as we all know metal people who live to “Whip My Hair Back And Forth.”
There are a lot o musicians who could take a page out of Coral’s book of jokes, and we wish they would. This is fun, novelty stuff and it’s a tough genre, all joking aside.
Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Cryptkicker 5, Spinal Tap and Steel Panther all have done well with the comedy genre and Coral is destined to be in this great company. We are going to stay tuned.