Review TRAGEDY ‘The Solo Albums’

Tragedy’s mental-metal-craziness is backed up by their bonafide musical and vocal skills.

by Maria Haskins

As a fan of Tragedy All Metal Tribute To The Bee Gees And Beyond (yes, that is the full name), it’s been an absolute pleasure to see the band’s latest video, the heavy-metallized cover of “You’re The One That I Want” from Grease, spread like viral wildfire on the internet these last few weeks. The brilliant, bedazzled, spandexed, mad genius of Tragedy is worthy of all that attention and more, and if you liked the band’s take on Grease, then you will find a lot to love about the band’s latest release The Solo Albums.

The Solo Albums is an 18 track whopper of an album taking its inspiration from KISS’ various solo releases in 1978, and just like previous albums by Tragedy (2013’s Death To False Disco Metal, for example) it’s almost impossible to convey the glory of the band’s particular brand of musical madness in words: you kind of have to hear it to believe it.

For example, this track-list includes what might best be described as a country-metal version of the John Denver classic “Take Me Home, Country Roads”; an awesomely warped “Sweet Caroline”, featuring an organ, crunchy riffs a-plenty and killer drums; not to mention the metal-disco-madness that is “Y.M.C.A” – a tune that Tragedy does even better than I had imagined (I hope a video is coming soon!).

But that’s just scratching the surface. Tragedy also does some mind-blowing mashups on this album. The pièce de résistance is when they first turn Ozzy’s “Crazy Train” into a ballad (!) and then (as if that wasn’t enough) twirl it together with Kansas’ “Dust In The Wind”. I mean, who does that? Who even thinks that up? The resulting “Crazy Train In The Wind” is a wonder to behold. And then there’s the a capella “Get Right Back To Misty Mountain Cold” which takes the deep, humming dwarven song from the first Hobbit-movie (known as “Far Over The Misty Mountains Cold” in Tolkien’s original book), and blends it with Maxine Nightingale’s old hit “Right Back Where We Started From”. Who the hell comes up with this stuff? Tragedy, that’s who.

Oh, and Tragedy’s heavy metal subversion of Toto’s “Africa” is another slice of sacrilegious perfection that has to be heard to be fully appreciated. The same goes for “Killing YOU Softly”: in Tragedy’s hands the gentle love song “Killing Me Softly With His Song” becomes a terrifying horror movie nightmare, done drunken-metal style, complete with demonic growls and howls. Tragedy grinds up the innocuous “I Think I’m Alone Now” in similarly spectacular fashion.

There are a lot of other goodies on this album, and the real glory of it all is that even in their most far-out, WTF-moments, Tragedy’s mental-metal-craziness is backed up by their bonafide musical and vocal skills.

Tragedy might have started out by creating ridiculously awesome heavy metal versions of Bee Gees’ tunes like “Stayin’ Alive” and “You Should Be Dancing”, but they have clearly moved beyond that now (as their current name indicates), and no musical genre or tune is safe anymore. Good thing too, because the results are hilariously entertaining and will make you crave even more from this glitterized disco-metal crew.

You can get The Solo Albums straight from the band here.

Tragedy: official website / Facebook / Twitter

Lineup:

• Barry Glibb — lead vocals, lead rhythm guitar, lead lead guitar, lead back-up vocals
• Mo’Royce Peterson — lead vocals, lead rhythm guitar, lead lead guitar, lead back-up vocals
• Disco Mountain Man — lead vocals, lead keyboards, lead cowbell
• Andy Gibbous Waning — lead vocals, lead bass, lead back-up vocals
• The Lord Gibbeth — lead drums
• Lance — lead towel boy and complete idiot

Track-list:

1. We Are Tragedy

Disco Mountain Man

2. You’re The One That I Want
3. Country Roads
4. Superstar

Mo’Royce Peterson

5. Sweet Caroline
6. Crazy Train In The Wind
7. Run To Me

Barry Glibb

8. YMCA
9. MacArthur Park
10. I Feel Love
11. Africa
12. Get Right Back To Misty Mountain Cold
13. I Just Want To Be Your Everything

The Lord Gibbeth

14. Loathing You
15. Killing You Softly
16. I Think I’m Alone Now

Lance

17. Lance Loves Beth

Tragedy

18. #1 Party Band

Maria Haskins’ Real Rock And Roll: Website / Twitter

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