Kirby Krackle’s Newest Offering: Live in Seattle

Kirby Krackle’s Kyle Stevens

While at Comic Con 2012, I took the opportunity to get Kirby Krackle’s new live CD, Live in Seattle. Recorded in their home town at KrackleFest in March this year, the new album could serve as a wonderful introduction to the talented song-writing duo of Kyle Stevens and Jim Demonakos. The album features some of the best numbers off of their three previous studio albums including the Green Lantern-themed “Ring Capacity”, the Fallout great “Vault 101”, and “Great Lakes Avengers”, inspired by Marvel’s weak-link team. Adam Warrock guests on “Roll Over” and “Booty Do Math” and there’s a cover of “Take on Me”, all for only $10. While many other nerd rock bands only excel lyrically, Kirby Krackle is one of the few acts in the wizard or nerd rock genre I’ve heard that successfully blend incisive lyrics with catchy tunes.

Having seen frontman Kyle Stevens perform twice here in Las Vegas at the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival, the new live album perfectly captures Kirby Krackle’s energy. The band is working on a fourth studio album and already has “Web-Slinger/Hope-Bringer” available for download on iTunes. If you like nerdy music about comics, video games, conventions, and zombies, I suggest Kirby Krackle’s first and second albums in addition to the new live album. Live in Seattle would almost be a greatest hits album except “Marvelous Girls” and “Zombie Apocalypse” from the band’s self-titled debut album are missing.

At Comic Con Kirby Krackle and MC Frontalot opened for director-comedian Kevin Smith on Friday night. I caught up with Kyle Stevens on Sunday and recorded a brief interview about the band’s plans for the future, his own background in D&D, and some of his favorite nerdcore and nerd rock acts.