I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that I never liked Tenacious D — fuck, dude, I loved Tenacious D. I watched their show on HBO, I bought their first album the day it came out in 2001, and I saw them live in concert. I thought they were great.

But then Jack Black way outstayed his welcome and his schtick got really tiring (Has he been funny in anything besides The Muppets and that one episode of Community recently?), and when I heard that the duo’s movie, The Pick of Destiny, was terrible, well, I never saw it. Or heard the accompanying album, for that matter.

And then I basically completely forgot about Tenacious D. until today, when The Laugh Button (by way of Metal Insider) alerted me to the fact that Black and partner Kyle Gass will release their third album, Rize of the Fenix, sometime in May. They’ve even released a clip of a new song, complete with lyrics acknowledging that, yes, no one liked Pick of Destiny.

I dunno. I’d love it if this turned out to be a great, funny album. I just think it’s one of those things that had its time, and that time has now passed.

Check out the song snippet below, then tell me whether or not I’m crazy. This is one of those arguments I’d really like to lose.

-AR

I wish I could find video of this somewhere, but I seem to recall a red carpet interview with Robert Downey, Jr. at last week’s Oscars, where the interviewer told him there was a rumor that Ozzy Osbourne wanted Downey to play him in a movie. The reviewer asked if Downey would ever consider such a role; Downey deferred to his wife, producer Susan Downey, who replied “It all depends on the script,” which is Hollywood-speak for “It all depends on how much money they offer us.”

At the time this all struck me as “What if?” talk – but now Metal Underground is reporting a rumor that Ozzy is “in talks with several studios” about turning his recent (and, much to my disbelief, apparently quite good) autobiography, I Am Ozzy, into a feature film.

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I haven’t gotten to write a review of Brutal Legend yet because, well, I just haven’t had time to play all the way through the game, and it seems like writing a review of half a game or whatever isn’t fair. But I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played so far.

And it seems like the game owes a debt to Metalocalypse. Besides some similarities in general tone, style of humor, and a love of violence, there’s the fact that Legend takes place in a magical, faraway land where everything is related to metal and everything looks more or less like it belongs in Mordhaus. Obviously Metalocalypse already owes a debt to metal imagery as old as Sabbath itself, but… there’s definitely a connection between Dethklok and Brutal Legend.

So kudos to the fan who made the below video. At some point it might get yanked for copyright infringement, so enjoy it while you can… I have to say, it seems pretty impressive for something fan-made. And wouldn’t be awesome if there really WAS a Dethklok/Eddie Riggs crossover?

Major props to Christopher Silverio for sending this in… thanks, dude!

-AR

Lots of you have been emailing us about the new Jack Black-led video game Brutal Legend. Unless you’ve been living in a cave like the MetalSucks Mansion the past couple of weeks, the game’s release has been pretty difficult to ignore because there are ads frickin EVERYWHERE for that shit (except MetalSucks, AHEM EA!). Personally I have zero interest in this game because the last gaming system I bought was the SNES, but presumably many of you rock your XBOX 360s and Playstation 3s as hard as you rock your Internet porn every night. So, here’s Jack Black in a “viral” video spot plugging the game, including some footage from the game itself. I guess the game comes out like pretty soon or something.

-VN

MY FELLOW NERDY GAMERS: Brutal Legend, the heavily anticipated metal-themed video game starring Jack Black, has a demo that is now available for download on Xbox Live for Gold Members. Being a Gold Member myself, I fully intend to get right and play the living shit outta that demo as soon as I’m done writing sarcastic blogs about metal for the day.

Alas, no word on whether or not the demo is going to be made available to PS3 users. But since I don’t have a PS3, I’m just gonna give a Nelson-esque “HA HA!” to those poor bastards and move on with my life.

Brutal Legend hits stores October 13. Everything I’ve heard thus far leads me to believe it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

-AR

A lot of you have e-mailed us over the past few weeks to express excitement for the October release of the metal-themed video game Brutal Legend (trailer above), which stars the voice of Jack Black as as “a heavy metal roadie who is transported to a mythical ancient world where he is called upon to fight evil.” Or something.

As far as I can tell, the excitement for the game comes from a) Black’s participation and b) the fact that there’s going to be a metal game that isn’t a rhythm game (e.g., Guitar Hero).

Unfortunately, Variety reports that a lawsuit might hold up the release of the game:

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