I have absolutely no interest in hearing about the dicks of the of the band Taipan. The less I know about their dicks, the better. Were I never to learn about the dicks of Taipan, I could die a happy man. However, between the time when I woke up this morning and just now, I played the debut album of Taipan, 1002: A Rock Odyssey, and learned far more about their dicks than I ever thought I would know.

On the song “My Big Dick in Your Mouth,” I was treated to the fascinatingly layered proclamation of “Suck my dick / suck my dick / now it’s all over your face / suck my dick!” To be fair, the song is about how the band is frustrated with lies being perpetrated about them on the Internet (and we know this only because this last line of the song is “go write some more shit on the computer.”) However, I am sure that there are better ways to dispel lies about a band than ordering/challenging/begging? such libelous individuals to fixate on the group's members. This is particularly when you put such a song on an album and the people who buy your album are not likely the people who defame the group in the first place.*

Onto other matters, the band is rooted in bluesy metal, sometimes leaning more towards rock and sometimes leaning more towards metalcore. The singer, Steve Austin (also of the far more celebrated Today Is the Day) sings in a voice that is almost a complete cross between Bon Scott and Brian Johnson. However, while the group has elements of AC/DC in their music, they lose the the playful randiness that ol’ Bon brought to the group and just end up sounding crass.

The album is billed as a rock odyssey and the band does due its best to traverse through styles while anchoring themselves in metal. There’s an almost Johnny Cash / June Carter duet piece in “Baby Loves Daddy” and on “Angel Dust” the group delves into Rush-style acoustic guitars and flutes. However, in almost every song, while Taipan does try these styles out, they almost always remind us that they can scream and play capable metal, and shatter most of the uniqueness a song had. The album isn’t so much of an odyssey as reckless driving...although it is technically capable reckless driving at that.

It’s a shame that such skill is wasted by vapid lyrics like “Don’t change my soul” and simply lowest common denominator lyrics like “My Big Dick in Your Mouth.” Were the band to expand their lyrical ideas and not rely so much on trying to employ as many styles as possible, they might find that they have developed their own recognizable sound. But until then, Taipan, wash out your mouth with soap and get back to the drawing board! Chop! Chop!

^{*-Notably, the Taipan is a large breed of snake. What is it with these guys and weiner references? On the other hand, the 4th grade me would have thought this was pure comedic gold and then promptly hit play on his Ace of Base cassette.}