Cool Like Me (Independent)

As fans of GWAR, Steel Panther and Dread Zeppelin will happily confirm, there’s no point forming a shtick band without a pretty good shtick. Enter the Dadolescents, who advertise themselves as a group of clean-cut middle-aged gentlemen targeting those who answer “yes” to the questions “Tired of songs by teenagers about being teenaged?” and “Too old to twerk?”

So if your prostate is the size of a Florida grapefruit and you need Shoppers Drug Mart glasses to read the small print on the box of All-Bran, Cool Like Me was made with you in mind. The album’s cover features a burning minivan, the music best filed under “competently played, mid-tempo punk rock”.

As for the execution of the material, the Dadolescents deliver where the song titles are concerned, with “Monthly Sex Night” and “All-Inclusive Mexican Vacation” nearly as funny as Fat Mike’s stage banter. Too bad the lyrics are nowhere near as inspired, mostly because the four-piece seems determined to keep it clean in case the children are listening.

Even if you can wholeheartedly relate to “Two kids got soccer in the morning/Better not get too gunned” from “Middle-Aged Guys Gone Crazy”, that’s not going to stop you from cuing up the Vandals’ “Anarchy Burger” the next time you wanna relive your youth while popping the top on a Bud Light.