If you’ve been hearing the name C.O.G. around town and imagined some sort of industrial outfit, let’s clue you in: the letters stand for Consortium Of Genius, a trio of musicians posing as mad scientists bent on—what else?—world domination. Led by Dr. Milo T. Pinkerton III (real name: Lewis D’Aubin), they’re best known for a strange multimedia stage show equal parts Mystery Science Theater 3000 and This Is Spinal Tap. Those are some giant, funny-ass shoes to fill, but fortunately, the, er, whatever they are have their experiments fully under control on this, their latest CD.

As a musical act, these merry pranksters like to spoof the whole history of rock ‘n’ roll within the framework of their conceit: dig the eerily perfect Queen pastiche “I Have The Power,” for example, which visualizes Freddie Mercury engaged in mass mind control, or “Bucket O’ Blood,” a punk operetta about some extremely bloodthirsty “vampirates” featuring ex-White Zombie bassist Sean Yseult, or “Reach Out And Touch The Hand,” a Neil Diamond homage that capitalizes on Neil’s lyrical obsessions in order to single-handedly revitalize the whole severed-hand genre in rock ‘n’ roll. (Assuming there was one.) The sound’s impeccable, as you’d imagine from such proud studio geeks, so you can enjoy this as a standalone work of music if that’s all you’re looking for.

However, this disc alone might not capture the attention of the unwashed masses Pinkerton wishes to manipulate—if there’s a problem with the C.O.G. experience, it’s that, as with parodistic forebears like “Weird Al” Yankovic, many of their yuks come from the visual as well as the audio. So pick up the band’s DVD, History of Future Civilization, catch one of their live shows at Howlin’ Wolf, and then pick this baby up as a souvenir. In fact, someone give these locals their own House of Shock—the TV show, that is, not the haunted house. This is the kind of mind control the media could use more of.

A CD release party is scheduled for Friday, November 11 at the Howlin’ Wolf.