Gnarls Barkley Rushes To Release Crap Album

Gnarls Barkley is quite eager to get their new mediocre album out to as many unimpressed ears as possible. Originally slated for official release on April 8, the duo has now made their sophomore effort The Odd Couple officially available for download now on iTunes despite having leaked weeks ago.

Billboard reports that the leak is not mentioned as the cause of the early release, quoting the bands semi-serious reason being, “the shifting seasons, furtive romantic entanglements and fierce college basketball rivalries, the latter half of March can be confusing. People need to be soothed and inspired now."

Too bad the album sucks beyond belief. I’ll have you know I thought their debut effort, 2006’s St. Elsewhere, was fantastic for many months. Besides the fact that now every time I hear “Crazy” being played I want to rip every hair out of my head and feed it to myself, I still think it was a really great effort from Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse.

The Odd Couple, however, has the reverse effect. Besides the first single “Run” whose video caused virtual mayhem for fear of causing seizures in viewers and later had to be edited, the rest of the album is, well, pure unadulterated garbage. Too many slow, unexciting songs that never kick in, with boring and depressing lyrics to match, it goes against a lot of what the duo set out to be with the first album.

Whereas I could dust off St. Elsewhere for those upcoming early sunny spring days of March (where the hell are they), The Odd Couple belongs in frozen tundra. Danceable funk and perfectly head-boppable songs like “Gone Daddy Gone” and “Smiley Faces” appear nowhere and instead are replaced with the triphoppish likes of “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” and the grade-schoolish “Whatever.” Falling into the trap of only baring a good single, the rest of the album simply falls short.

I’m more disappointed in Danger Mouse, whose previous projects includes producing the Gorillaz, and collaborating with the likes of The Rapture, the upcoming Beck album and Ike Turner (as in Tina) just to name a few. I guess I’ll just throw Gnarls Barkley into the one album wonder museum along with Bloc Party and The Killers.