Album Review: Korean Fire Drill – More Badass Than Half Ass

  • Phinky posted
  • Reviews

Korean Fire Drill

More Badass Than Half Ass - Self Released

This is Korean Fire Drill‘s sophomore album, More Badass Than Half Ass follows on from their debut release, Halfass Is Badass, just from the album titles it would seem that this is a band that appears to have found a formula that works for them, and it’s one that they’re going to stick with. More Badass Than Half Ass is at first glance a hefty twenty six song album, however once you’ve whittled down the numerous skits that populate almost half of this release, what you have is fourteen tracks, four of which are covers or remakes, of hard edged rock and alt rock that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

More Badass Than Half Ass opens with a rocky ode to Kanye West and before long you hit a patch of covers, ranging from straight up rock, Heart‘s Barracuda, through rocked up hip hop and a band that were obviously an inspiration to Korean Fire Drill, The Bloodhound Gang. This is an album that varies between straight up rock and alt rock, as technically proficient as Korean Fire Drill are the album feels unadventurous, I can’t help feeling that live, and with a fair few beers inside you, these would be a great party band, but that party vibe just doesn’t seem to transfer onto a studio recording.

With a band that’s intentionally playing things for laughs it’s hard for the joke not to start wearing a bit thin, and I found this was the case with More Badass Than Half Ass. The intermittent skits become an irritation after your first listen and will inevitably be deleted or skipped, there are covers and remakes from the likes of Gorillaz, Dr Dre, and The Bloodhound Gang but these seem to be fairly straight forward versions, just with guitars replacing the original instruments of the songs in question. In short this is a fairly uninspiring rock album that’s covering ground that was well covered by others in the mists of time, if you’re a fan of Faith No More, Alien Ant Farm or Ugly Kid Joe, and are stuck in a time warp, then you’ll probably enjoy this, for me it’s more half ass than badass.

Korean Fire Drill‘s Facebook page can be found here