Reviewed by Mike Rimmer

LAUGH? I nearly cried!  Now here's a unique twist - a Christian band that takes hold of mainstream pop and rock songs, parodies them and rewrites the lyrics making them into Christian songs.  Kind of like sanctified Weird Al Yankovitch!  And it's great! 'Ticked' takes mainly American alternative rock stuff and has a lot of fun with it!  So Hootie and the Blowfish's "Only Wanna Be With You" becomes "Naomi Gonna Be With Ruth" and then you get a wonderful parody of "Gangsta's Paradise".  Hilarious!  Even better is "Plump" which rips up "Lump" by The Presidents Of The USA and turns it into a song about Eglon and Ehud in Judges 3!!  Their "Peaches" also gets a take off and becomes "Preachers"!!  This is extremely clever stuff and credit has to be given to singer J Jackson who works so hard at writing the lyrics.  Overall the band deliver the different styles parodied with great effectiveness and affection!  So, songs from Garbage, Bush, Pearl Jam, Nirvana and others are lampooned with a message!  What finished me off was "You Gotta Go" which takes off a rather famous Alanis Morisette song!  Overall one of the most creative things I've heard in ages!  Even the cover, a pastiche of Rolling Stone Magazine (Rolling Clone) is funny!  However, like many comedy albums, this is hysterical but unless you're sharing it with others and making them laugh, it's easy to quickly lose interest!  Bet they're a killer live though!

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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