Kingsauce - Cancelled

All Music Guide

Kingsauce describe their music as "novelty pop," and while it's clear that singer, guitarist, bassist, keyboard player, songwriter and allaround idea guy Richie Chodes is a pretty strong hand with a melody and a hook, it's the novelty part that stands front and center on their second fulllength album, Cancelled. As the title would suggest, television is Chodes primary obsession on Cancelled, as he writes tunes inspired by hours spent watching Welcome Back Kotter, All In The Family, The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals and McDonald's commercials, as well as sharing stories about buying a stomp box supposedly owned by Adam Sandler, a disappointing meeting with Morgan Freeman and how the right mixture of breakfast cereal and antidepressants can make you feel like Conrad Bain. Throw in other numbers about Chuck Negron's failings as a role model, losers you knew from high school and flatulence, and you get an album that sounds like a cross between Weird Al Yankovic and Ween. But while Chod...es' lyrics are more adventurous and surreal than Weird Al, they're not as consistently funny, and Ween's brown pop vision is a good bit broader and more compelling than what Kingsauce delivers here, though Chodes writes enough good tunes here that one might wish he'd try cutting a straightahead pop set instead of a hitandmiss comedy set. And while it's true fart jokes are a staple of contemporary culture, "Who Cut The Cheese" demonstrates why no one wants to hear one that goes on for over three minutes. Judging from a few listens to Cancelled, Richie Chodes needs a scholarship to the Scott McCaughey Institute Of Funny Pop Songs, as Kingsauce hasn't quite mastered the art of generating laughs and hooks in equal measure. - Mark Deming, All Music Guide Read more Less