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Rating: 69%
TISM (This Is Serious Mum) have always been a one-trick pony � it�s just that their trick has always been kinda amusing. For who knows how long (it must be about fifteen years by now), they�ve been taking the piss out of rock, hamming it up and generally not taking anything too seriously, and treating most things with disdain.
They do this all the time, wearing masks and going under assumed monikers � Ron Hitler-Barassi on vocals, Humphrey B. Flaubert on vocals and drums, Eugene de la Hot Croix Bun on vocals and keyboards, John St Peenis on vocals, Jock Cheese on bass, Les Miserables on vocals and Tokin Blackman on guitar, possibly the whole lot of �em being high up in the police force, outstanding corporate lawyers, and men of industry.
On De Rigueurmortis, TISM (as always) play with words. Everything that the world appears to revere � popstars, celebrities, naked chefs, God, the Queen Mother, �reality� television, DJ�s, X-treme sports, amongst other things � is given the treatment. Occasionally it�s like listening to a calmed down version of comedy duo Roy and H.G. on disc, but it�s always fairly amusing.
The highlight of the record is probably the first single, �If You�re Not Famous At Fourteen, You�re Finished�, which has a really vicious look at the vacuous pre-packaged teen stars of today and also embraces a sample from the seminal daggy theme show to Countdown. Also good (very, very bad in it�s goodness) is �Though Shalt Not Britney Spear� (where her boyfriend, the narrator, likes her for her mind and not her body), �Schoolies Week�, and especially �Honk if You Love Fred Durst�. De Rigueurmortis is hardly going to be for everyone, and those that dig TISM will probably dig it more than others, but for the most part it�s simply great fun.
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