April 7th, 2010 
James Shotwell 
Artist: Brian Posehn
Album: Fart and Wiener Jokes
Genre: Comedy/Metal
Label: Relapse
On his 2006 debut album Live In: Nerd Rage, Brian Posehn brought his metal fueled brand of comedy to the mainstream and became an underground sensation. Since then, he’s been hitting the road in between his various projects [including The Sarah Silverman Program and a role in Seth Green’s Sex Drive] and building an even larger fanbase of metal nerds and Star Trek geeks along the way. His upcoming Relapse Records release, Fart and Wiener Jokes, summarizes his work over that time with talk of everything from women farting to mobile strippers and Wikipedia.
As I always make a point to mention, comedy is like beauty, entirely up to the audience. Posehn’s fans generally seem best summarized by metal, horror, Star Trek or comic geeks, some of whom have managed to find girlfriends or marry, and who love marijuana as well as pop culture to the extreme. If you fall into any or all of these categories and don’t mind a colorful splash of vulgarity or talk of gratuitous sex acts, Posehn could be right for you.
On Fart and Wiener Jokes, Posehn continues bringing his elaborate joke structures to center stage, but never misses the opportunity for a quick funny bone jab in the form of, well, fart and wiener jokes. As a nerd myself, I take a lot of joy from simply listening to how Posehn sets up his comedy. There’s rarely a moment in his set that doesn’t feel methodically planned for maximum hilarity and that’s what makes even his simplest jokes work extremely well. For instance, a simple joke about how the sex drive of males ruins cuddling takes about 4 minutes to come to fruition and the audience chuckles along the WHOLE WAY. Not many comics working today have the ability to keep the audience’s attention without resorting to quick jabs, but Posehn can. He makes his way through a set-up like he’s pitching you the best film he’s ever seen. There’s details and thoughts from both people and creatures that we’ve all thought or felt ourselves at one point in our lives and Posehn’s ability to capture those ideas is what makes this record so good.
In addition to the comedy, Posehn joined forces with a group of metal legends [including Scott Ian] to create two metal tracks which close the album. The first, “More Metal Than You,” is a straight forward throw-down fest with Posehn taking lead to scream about his metal history. While I’m not sold on Posehn as a vocalist, the track itself slays. The other song, a cover of Kenny Roger’s “The Gambler,” is also done in heavy metal fashion, but with less than spectacular results. Sure, its funny the first two times, but I really see no reason anyone would keep it in rotation for too long.
For those of you who’ve never really experienced Posehn outside of his film and tv appearances, the material on this album will leave you in stitches for weeks. Unfortunately, for those of us who’ve followed Posehn’s comedy career since the first record, most the material on Fart and Wiener Jokes will sound like familiar territory. Whether it be from talk shows or live concerts, longtime fans will quickly find the bulk of the 24 comedy tracks have been heard before. Its great to have them all in one place and in their entirety, but I don’t think its going to be enough to satisfy Posehn’s stand up followers. That said, Brian is one of the best comedians working today and I cannot recommend his material enough.
Score: 8.5/10
Review written by: James Shotwell
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