Despite being saddled with enough irony to blind Jane Austen, David Whitcomb (aka The Dissapointments) has here produced twenty tracks that span the entire spectrum of what one person can be reasonably expected to do in the form of a one-man band, going so far as to cover a handful of "classics" that would get most copyright infringers thrown in jail. Here, they seem oddly appropriate and prove a testament to Whitcomb's uncanny ability to nail the essence of nearly any genre of song -- a gift occasionally spoiled by a frosting of that omnipresent irony. There's a sense of a disc so densely packed that sometimes the over-the-top meter malfunctions, resulting in whippets of pandemonium like "This Is For...", which opens the album with self-mockery as superstar. Nearly every track here is insanely brief and ungodly catchy. Whitcomb is actually at his best when he's working instrumentally, free of the easy lyrical puns that he seems to favor and forced to craft a gutwrenching melody, which he does so incredibly well on small jewels like the unfortunately named "You Have an Ass Where Your Head Should Be" and the intro to "Hyapatia". These beauties counterbalance the overuse of phrases like "motherfucker" and "asshole", which have lost their impact after so many Tarantino movies. But the lyrics can't be stymied forever, nor should they be, given Whitcomb's unusually high rate of success at being clever. "I Can't Believe I Choked to Death" is a first-person account of the embarrassment associated with dying in a less-than-respectable way, complete with out of body experience. Milking simple rhyme structure for all it's worth on "Some folks", Whitcomb points out the basic differences between himself and the vast majority: "Some folks swim / I row... Some folks are rich / I'm po'... Some folks work / I ho." Immediately followed by a killer rendition of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time", bringing the credible covers I've heard of that song to three in the past six months -- Ms. Lauper's musical sensibilities have found new champions in the new millennium, it seems. Not to be outdone, Cyndi shares cover space here with Ice-T ("Cop Killer") and Elton John ("Rocket Man"). But the sharpest ode of all may be the Dolly Parton-cum-Whitney Houston turn on "I Will Always Love You", which Whitcomb races through at triple time without losing any sense of authenticity (if that's possible), culminating in the most delirious punchline on the album, a recital of the "and I wish you joy and happiness" verse as filtered through a riot police bullhorn. And if this doesn't tell you something about the warped and gifted mind behind this disc, perhaps all the irony in the world (most of which has been co-opted for this album) won't turn your head. -- Justin Kownacki

A tightly knit DIY acoustic punk explosion, The Disappointments run roughshod over genre lines (and everything else) over the course of the 20 tracks on their self-produced album. Finding the links between folk and punk, Americana and garage rock, the band jumps from lighthearted rockers to jokey-but-thoughtful acoustic musings. Lo-fi but very listenable, we were especially amused by unique cover treatments of “Rocket Man” and “Time After Time.”