Girls of Geek Album Review - "Critical Fail" by The Stubby Shillelaghs

Written by John Edward Betancourt

It seems more and more that there is a new genre of music appearing on the scene, one that doesn't have a specific title, but for the sake of today's article, let's just refer to it as Nerd Music and I'm not surprised to see this genre grow and grow because after all this is the age of the nerd and celebrating what we love across every single medium is the thing to do these days.

Now the downside to this genre as it grows is that growing pains are evident. I've heard some quality albums, heard some not so quality albums and I understand the struggles, this is a tough medium to perfect. Make it too nerdy and you limit your audience, make it too mainstream and you lose your message.  

But thankfully, I recently had the chance to enjoy The Stubby Shillelaghs new album "Critical Fail" and as it turns out this Colorado Band has succeeded in providing the world with a fun album that stands out above the rest in the Nerd Music genre and manages to appeal to music fans everywhere. In fact, this is suffice a say a unique album since the Stubbies in my experience keep a Celtic feel to their music when they perform, and they do that well everywhere they go but this album took me by surprise since it managed to stay true to the Stubbies roots while they tried out some new things that absolutely work.

But before we get into that, I made mention of appealing to a mass audience and the album does that nicely. There's something nerdy for everyone on "Critical Fail" as the Stubbies cover every nerdy genre out there, if you want Star Wars, you got it. If you want Harry Potter, it's here, but what really made me enjoy the album is the fact that it employs so many different techniques. There are echoes of Weird Al and Tenacious D as the guys bring the fun the whole way. The comedy bits are a lot of fun and the songs leave you either laughing out loud or smiling with delight.

But most importantly, you see the band grow as artists as well. There are plenty of songs that match their original style, but at the same time they pepper in a few songs in the style of spoken word that work quite well and the track "Coming Up Milhouse" takes us into a reggae style that's catchy and oddly enough of all the songs on this album that's the one melody that has been stuck in my mind for a few days now. Either way, this is a fun album, from a fun band that demonstrates their passion for music and all things nerdy through and through with this album and it's definitely worth picking up and giving a listen to, which brings forth the question, where can one find "Critical Fail"? Well I would recommend getting it from the source, The Stubby Shillelaghs' website and I hope you enjoy the album as much as I have.

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