Flight of the Conchords - self-titled 2008 album review

April 10th, 2008 | Music, Writing

At this point it’s certainly a hoary cliche to call any album ‘long-awaited’, but Flight of the Conchords’ new eponymous debut studio album finally puts down ‘definitive’ versions of several songs fans have likely heard in a few different versions already, including their 2002 debut Folk the World Tour, 2005 HBO One Night Stand Special, to their BBC Radio 2 series, to their successful 2007 HBO series, to their Grammy-winning The Distant Future EP, or possibly even at one of their relatively infrequent live performances. Being among said fans, it’s difficult not to mentally compare most of these tracks to past renditions — I think ‘Bowie’, ‘Robots’, and ‘Business Time’ have been in at least four of the above already, so it’s good that they’re finally available in one place for listeners’ convenience. Problem is, Flight of the Conchords isn’t just a group, they’re a comedy group, and once you’ve heard a joke a few times already it loses a lot of its zing. So while I certainly enjoyed this album, it didn’t evoke a lot of laughter from me — merely a few wry chuckles scattered here and there. Fortunately, the music itself is largely strong enough to make for pleasant listening even without the additional punch of humor, but while I’ll likely be happy to hear any of these tracks pop up in random play on my ipod the album probably won’t get too many full airings. If nothing else, the album has definitely whetted my appetite for new HBO FotC shows, which presumably will contain more new songs and start the whole cycle over again.