Jason W. reviews Patton Oswalt's "My Weakness Is Strong"

With an intro joke about a mistyped text message to his wife and segueing into an absurdly worded announcement that he has a child on the way, Patton Oswalt's album “My Weakness is Strong” starts with a bang.

This album, like typical Patton fare, is a romp through the convoluted mind of an unapologetic geek. His witticisms pull references from high culture and pop culture alike. When speaking of worries about Halloween in wake of his voice role in Pixar's Ratatouille, he muses:

“I can no longer enjoy drinking scotch on Halloween for fear that some kid will come to the door in a Remy the Rat costume and I'll blurt out enthusiastically... 'You're walking the night in my skin. How does that feel?' which is really only one step away from, 'Does this washcloth smell like chloroform to you?'”

Or his thoughts on self-checkout lines at the grocery store:

“Now, YOU wave your food over the laser beam, YOU give the money to the robot, YOU put the food in the bag,  and YOU take the bag out to your car, because my grocery store got all of my letters where I said, 'I want to be a check-out clerk!'”

This album is not as absurdly obscene as his first album, “Feelin' Kinda Patton” and lacks some of the Juggernaut-like momentum of his second album, “Werewolves and Lollipops”, but with its delightful observations on the barbs and pitfalls of being

human in this time and place, this album hits on all cylinders.

Between thoughts on mp3 players (an affordable miracle that no one cares about) and concerns about a post-apocalyptic future (“I need to be stringy or I'm dead.”), Oswalt's comedy is as fresh and funny as it has always been.