THERAPY? "High Anxiety"
by Dana Brittingham

Cover: 6 Support Groups out of 10
It's a black and white picture of a thanksgiving dinner table, and the people sitting around it have angry heads superimposed over the original photo. Hey there's some Peter Beavis photography going on there. Damned if I don't know my clip-art.

Booklet: 5 Electroshock Treatments out of 10
It's a 12-page booklet and lots of artsy photographs of the band. Everyone's heads look like they've been torn out of the original photo and then pasted back onto it. There aren't lyrics per se, but there's a line from each song along with the song title spread throughout the 12 pages. 2 pages are devoted to a short list of credits and pictures of guitars. It's creative in its design but is kind of boring.

Songs: 6 Bottles of Prozac out of 10
The first song is called "Hey Satan - You Rock" and basically sucks. It doesn't really fit in with the rest of the CD, the title kind of cheesy, and I just don't get it. Beyond that, every other song on this disc is pretty good. They'd be good songs to listen to while on a crystal binge. There's also a bonus hidden song appended to the last track which makes it almost 10 minutes long. All the tunes have kind of a punk-pop feel to them and run the gamut from moody to really happy songs. What do you know, it's one of them new-fangled Enhanced CDs, which means you can put it in your computer and you can watch a video for the song "If It Kills Me," which in itself may be the very best song on this album.

Comments: Therapy? (with the question mark) formed in Ireland in 1989 and got a lot of notice in the States when they appeared on "Nativity In Black - A Tribute to Black Sabbath" in 1994, performing "Iron Man" with vocals by Ozzy Osbourne himself. I've always wondered why Ozzy would appear on a tribute album to Black Sabbath. That's almost as bad as Bret Michaels' tribute to Poison album. Anyhow, Ozzy ended up taking Therapy? out on OzzFest the next year; since then, they've been on 3 different record labels and had a few member changes but have consistently put out new music year after year. "High Anxiety" is their 10th album and sounds pretty much like their 1994 disc "Troublegum," which is the only other Therapy? album I've bothered to listen to.