The Artichokes: choke on this

From the album cover, it's not hard to guess the theme of this band, but the intended audience is another story. Are The Artichokes a Nickelback re-do? Not to fear, your five-year-old will not get tossed out of kindergarten for repeating the lyrics on this album--at least not if the kindergarten wouldn't toss them out for Three Stooges material such as "just for the halibut" or "you artichoke."

Now, "choke on this" is a heady title, but the song of the same name is not on this album. But I take that previous statement back--"Eat Your Vegetables" does concern ritual zombie sacrifice. Perhaps your five-year-old shouldn't listen to this album after all.

There's also controversy on this album as two songs address the apparent lack of coherence in grocery store classifications of fruits and vegetables: "my tomato" and "gourds have seeds."

Except for three songs about trains and one about Seattle, this album keeps to theme. My favorites are "Mama's Pumpkins" and "The Neighbor's Zucchini."

Check it out.