Choad

You have to be an absolute genius or a complete idiot to name your band Choad. Depending on where you went to junior high, choad generally refers either to a penis that is wider than it is long or to the anatomical no man’s land located between, shall we say, your pee-pee and your poo-poo. Either way, it’s hardly the handle of a troupe of serious artistes. Throw in song titles like “Lobsters, Cocaine & Whores” and “My New VCR,” and all you can really expect from an album called It’s All Over Now is some fun, disposable rock. Choad doesn’t exactly disappoint, but these really are serious musicians cloaked in juvenile humor. Tunes such as “Who Got Ripped Off” and “Kill It” are adequate distillations of poppy garage rock, but it’s difficult to say if the album’s garage feel is a debt to the band’s raw sound or to the fact that the album was probably actually recorded in a garage. As it is, “Lobsters, Cocaine & Whores” is too polished to be raw, “It’s All Over Now” is too rough to be polished, and It’s All Over Now is too pedestrian to be more memorable than the fact that three guys from Lawrence thought it would be a good idea to call their band Choad.