Seattle based Kirby Krackle are a self-proclaimed “Comic Book/Nerd Rock Band”. What does this mean, exactly?

No, their albums aren’t made up of KA-POW! sound effects. Neither are they a band that covers songs from video games. What it means is that their lyrics are heavily inspired by the things that interests nerds and geeks around the world; video games and comic books.

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If you’re a long time listener of our podcast, Barrel Roll!, you might recall a very special episode last June where we chatted with Mustin of The OneUps about his two new projects in the works, and even played a radio edit from each. One of those albums, CHRONOTORIOUS, has long since been released and reviewed. The other is finally dropping on May 4th.

For those unfamiliar, The OneUps are a videogame cover band that interprets classic tunes into a variety of styles, including Fusion, Funk, and Jazz. Their newest project, the Super Mario Kart Album, has been a long time coming. In our interview, Mustin shared that both the game itself and the original soundtrack by composer Soyo Oka, holds a special place with him. The Super Mario Kart Album is a labor of love you wont want to miss.

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When I was first told of “The Protomen”, I was skeptical. The band’s first album was described to me as a rock opera based on the classic Mega Man series. Though I am a huge Mega Man fan, I just couldn’t see something like this actually being executed well. To my surprise, I loved it. In fact, I was so fond of it that I feared their next album wouldn’t be able to live up to it.

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"A Chrono Trigger Arrange Album by The Bad Dudes"

It still amazes me to this day that Yasunori Mitsuda’s very first video game score would turn out to be one of the most beloved game soundtracks of all time. After such a memorable first effort, Mitsuda has continued to create great music over the years, taking the spot as my personal favorite composer.

To say that the source material The Bad Dudes chose to arrange is “good” is an understatement. That being said, there is certainly a lot of pressure to live up to when making a Chrono Trigger album, especially considering how many Chrono Trigger remixes already exist.

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"This blue bomba' brings head trauma"

Let me preface this review by saying one thing: I am not normally a fan of adding lyrics to videogame remixes. That was before Random came along.

Half teacher, half musician, Random already had a much more serious rap album under his belt before deciding to share his love of Mega Man using his music. This is one of the things that I feel helps set him apart from the other artists labeled as “nerdcore”.

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“The World’s First Comic Book Rock Band”

Kirby Krackle is a collaborative project between indie rocker Kyle Stevens (former frontman and songwriter of Seattle based Laymans Terms) and Jim Demonakos (owner of The Comics Stop and head organizer of The Emerald City ComiCon). As you might imagine, comic books and video games have heavily inspired all the songs in this self-titled debut album from the pop-culture fueled pair.

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