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Have you ever watched one of those Saturday Night Live sketches that go on for too long?

Imagine one of them put to generic thrash/groove metal. Sounds rubbish, doesn’t it? It is, and it’s called Psychostick.

That’s really where this review should end, but, much like the band themselves, let’s carry on long after the joke has stopped being funny. The nicest thing you can say about this band is that they are ‘wacky’, you know; office joker in a Spongebob tie, deliberately wearing odd socks, Timmy Mallet-wacky. Wacky could also be described as ‘painfully annoying’ or ‘utterly unbearable’. Just listen to NSFW, which lyrically just consists of the word ‘fuck’ sung to different tunes, or Dogs Like Socks, a song about the fact that dogs chew socks… Where do they come up with this stuff? Some of the music is OK, but it’s swamped by painfully unfunny, meaningless nonsense and silly voices. Psychostick obviously think they are South Park meets Mr Bungle, when in reality they make Alestorm sound like King Crimson.

Via Rock Ridge Music

Since blagging his way onto the Hammer team a decade ago, Stephen has written countless features and reviews for the magazine, usually specialising in punk, hardcore and 90s metal, and still holds out the faint hope of one day getting his beloved U2 into the pages of the mag. He also regularly spouts his opinions on the Metal Hammer Podcast.