Death metal enlivened by animation

Dethklok is the improbably successful collision of “Beavis and Butt-head’’ and “The Commitments.’’ The metal band from the cartoon series “Metalocalypse’’ takes the headbanging stereotype to a comical extreme, though in a heroic direction. Dethklok’s music - written by co-creator Brendon Small, who performs it with drummer Gene Hoglan - has taken off on its own, just as the Commitments went from silver-screen creation to touring band. Compared to its predecessor, “Dethalbum II’’ is an even more entertaining installment of the Dethklok sound. The dozen tracks don’t simply satirize death metal but instead offer a whole fresh mutant strain of the genre, one that border hops from the brutal sounds of US death metal bands to the more flamboyant dark metal proffered by European thrashers. Small, in the heartless bark of character Nathan Explosion, chronicles all manner of death, destruction, and mayhem. Yet how seriously harmful can a record be that has a song titled “I Tamper With the Evidence at the Murder Site of Odin’’? And if Republicans need a rally song for their side of the health care debate, Dethklok has the “pull the plug’’ singalong “Dethsupport.’’