Album Review: GWAR - "The New Dark Ages"

Is it weird to suggest that GWAR is going back to their roots?  

It doesn’t seem strange to say when measured against the nearly forty-year career of the world’s favorite and longest-running shock rock band, but it does seem out of place when reflected against the mirror of GWAR, who have never been anything but GWAR.

Perhaps the greatest adjustment to the band’s aural idiom over the years was the transformation from a punk band into a metal band, which was initially the product of Cory Smoot (may he rest in peace.)  Musically, the band has never looked back from that flux point circa 2001, and it’s within reason to suggest that GWAR from that moment forward had become more than just an elaborate, can’t-miss stage show.

But what lay truly at the root of GWAR’s legacy is their ability to tell stories, whether that be an utterly ridiculous interpretation of the terribly mundane, or an utterly ridiculous, space-faring story of unfathomable silliness.  GWAR has perpetually been comfortable in both phases, and that’s been the backbone of all their success.  Lesser bands like Lordi have attempted to copy some aspects of GWAR’s implacable stage show, but without the context of the theater of the absurd, it all boils down to a bunch of grown men jumping around in molded foam and plastic.  

“The New Dark Ages” is GWAR’s best storytelling album in more than a decade, easily the most accomplished in this field since “Lust in Space,” and likely going all the way back to 2004’s “War Party.”  Thematically, we see GWAR again as anti-heroes, fighting off insidious forces from deep within the earth that seek to destroy humanity, etc.  

What made the narrative, for lack of a better term, on “War Party” work so well is that events on the real-life planet earth had come to a head in such a way that GWAR was able to easily craft an angry, expressive album.  Through the lens of GWAR’s comedic nonsense, it was easy to decipher the not-at-all-subtle message the band was trying to get across; that they were mad at a world gone crazy with an inexhaustible thirst for conflict, in all forms.

“The New Dark Ages,” by contrast, clearly emotes with obvious exhaustion.  Their first album in five years, and first since the global pandemic, sounds tired.  “Unto the Breach,” which given the band’s usual epic themes would stand to be a rousing metal mosher, is a chugging burn, sounding strained and strung out at even its most spry moments.  It’s as though not just the characters but the artists themselves are weary from picking up their weapons.

Continuing with the theme of throwing up one’s hands and throwing in the towel, “Unto the Breach” is followed by “Completely Fucked,” which actually is the album’s best cut.  It’s the sharpest song on the album, the place where GWAR seems to recover some of their stride and crafts a memorable and infectious riff that will carry the day in concerts for years to come.

Overall though, if it sounds like this review has been preparing to soften the blow, that’s because it is.  “The New Dark Ages” succeeds greatly in constructing a poignant message, but the music also, frankly, sounds tired.  This is as stripped-down and thin a GWAR production as there’s been in recent memory, in some regards taking them all the way back to the early days of low-budget punk.  “Venom of the Platypus” is a fun punk rawker for what it is, but that’s also all it is.

Pushing aside the frailties of the production, there’s nothing musically inspiring here.  Except for those mentioned above, the riffs are all common stock for punk or metal or hardcore, and they just sort of amble about while vocalist Blothar gathers us around the campfire for another depressing story.  Even singles like “Berserker Mode” are instantly forgettable, living in that worst-case scenario of purgatory where the songs are neither memorably good or memorably bad  “The New Dark Ages” possesses little snap, little fanfare, and lacks much of the tongue-in-cheek humor that has always made GWAR’s ongoing telling of the apocalypse seem like such fun.  It is also a startlingly long record, even without the eleven-minute throwaway outro of “Deus Ex Monstrum.”

It’s not hard to imagine why GWAR might be fed up with the whole bit at this point.  It’s fair to reason that nearly every person of comprehending age is world-weary for a variety of reasons, from the menial to the disappointing to the societally critical.  We’ve all been through a lot and even GWAR, at day’s end, is human.  So it makes sense that in 2017 GWAR was willing to rant and rage and sing “Fuck This Place,” and now in 2022, that fire has been quelled.

So in some part this even begs a bigger question: when all of us are looking for artists to pull us up out of the hole and give us some hope, who do the artists turn to for the same?  “The New Dark Ages” doesn’t offer us an answer.

Album Review: GWAR - "The Blood of Gods"

At first take, you see the updates in your inbox or on social media about a new GWAR album, and you shrug it off; the band produces albums like clockwork and cynics would suggest that they only release new material as an excuse to tour anyway, so the news hardly seems worth a second look.

And then you realize what it is you’re actually seeing, and you remember everything that’s happened.  “The Blood of Gods,” marks the first fresh (perhaps filthy?) studio material from the iconic band since the premature death of Oderus Urungus (Dave Brockie,) and who knows not only what mysteries it contains but how it will be received?  Will fans and critics accept an album that no longer features the man who made the band what it is?

To answer that, you first have to examine the album itself.  Maybe this is a dated reference, but anybody remember the classic Steve Martin/Rick Moranis movie “My Blue Heaven”?  If you remember, much before the gimmick was taken by the sitcom “Frasier,” the movie breaks ups its chapters with full-screen messages hinting at what comes next.  There is one in particular, where Vincent Antonelli (Steve Martin,) tell us (forgive me if the quote is not exact) “As I am trained for nothing else, I re-embark on my old career.”

I told you that story to tell you this one; that’s sort of how “The Blood of Gods” feels.  There is no debating that over time, between the metal directional influence of Corey Smoot and Brockie’s own willingness to allow GWAR to evolve and change, GWAR became less a punk/thrash band and more in the true metal vein.  The band that both of those men left behind was not the band they had inherited or started.  In the absence of those governing forces, it’s easy to envision the band, reunited with former member Michael Bishop in the lead, having a meeting where somebody said “well, hell, what did we used to do?  Can we do that again?”

And so they did.  “The Blood of Gods” has much more in common with “This Toilet Earth” or even the hallowed “Scumdogs of the Universe,” than it does with “War Party” or “Lust in Space.”  We see a return here to much of the two-beat, thrash beginnings of the band, from simple drum beats and rapid-fire guitars, to a thematic return of making fun of people and declaring the Earth a giant piece of excrement.

Now, let’s be clear here – that’s certainly enjoyable in its own right, and there’s plenty to smirk at here, headlined by the blistering riff and repeated gang chorus of “Fuck This Place.”  In another universe, sans costumes and perhaps with slightly less profanity, this song would have felt right at home on any classic Minor Threat or Black Flag album. 

The thing that’s remained unchanged is that GWAR still has a predilection for the off-kilter oddity of a long form storytelling piece, and that’s how we get “The Sordid Soliloquy of Sawborg Destructo” right in the middle of the album.

The general tone here remains that of old school GWAR however, with their idiomatic synergy of the highly theatric with the musically accessible.  “Swarm” works because it treads that line, halfway between the acclaim of Thin Lizzy’s dual guitar innovation and the base comical profanity of the S.O.D.  Few bands have as much history doing both, and thus even in returning to an earlier era, GWAR can still teach a thing or two.

That’s why the album works, even if it is a departure from the band’s more recent efforts – because in going back to their roots, GWAR thus returns to a form of their art which had already worked for them in the past.  In answer the questions at the top of this article then, new fans may have to make an adjustment, but they should find enough familiarity to adapt without overwhelming difficulty.  Old fans and critics alike will feel that what is old can be new again.

Concert Review: GWAR 30th Anniversary Tour

There are two competing impossibilities walking into a GWAR show on this tour.  First, that the band has really been around for thirty years and where-does-the-time-go, while the second, and perhaps more impossible impossibility, is that such a band could survive, and indeed thrive, for thirty years in the first place.

The battle, such as it was, began appropriately enough with Battlecross, the raucous band of thrash upstarts who specialize in the abstract concepts of ‘loud’ and ‘fun.’  As we discussed not so long ago with the release of their recent album, Battlecross works best as a singles band who can produce electric moments.  So it stands to reason that seeing them live is essentially a gleeful highlight showcase, and such was the case on this evening.  Battlecross, when they slam into “Force Fed Lies” to lead their set, marks an important pace car for the rest of the evening.  The fury of their sound, the resounding ring of their guitar tone and the eminent pleasure they get from playing sets the bar awfully high for everyone who follows.  This trend continued whether new or old material, while singer Kyle Gunther plays his humorous hand to the crowd, extolling the virtues of purchasing a t-shirt in order to prevent your car from being destroyed by GWAR’s ‘spew.’  Within all that though, the band fired off two of their classics, one of which is an all-timer.  “Flesh and Bone” remains the most potent song in the band’s arsenal, sounding every bit as powerful and neck-ruining as it does on disc, while “Push Pull Destroy” is ever the thundering clarion of the band.  The crowd, while seemingly not wholly familiar with the band, ended up both appreciative and enthralled.

Which takes us to Butcher Babies.  There is no ambiguity to the presentation of this band and what our eyes are supposed to be attracted to.  The energetic gyrations and machinations of Heidi Shepherd and Carla Harvey is both enticing and alluring.  There is a certain unavoidable charisma not only in the obvious physical embellishment of the pair, but in the overflowing attitude of chaotic encouragement that permeates all that they do.  The other two band members wear nothing but common stage black, almost as though they are not allowed to have personality that might rival the dynamic duo at the front of the stage.  For all that, the pounding that characterizes all of the band’s singles and doesn’t always translate on a recorded medium works reasonably well at stirring the crowd into comparative madness.  Fan favorites like “Blonde Girls All Look the Same” and “Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers” were equally adept at selling the band’s wares, both songs a flurry of flowing, dyed hair and stomping Chuck Taylors on the stage, with the accordant milling and smashing of the mosh pit below.  The set continued much in this fashion, never relenting all the way through the final note of the set’s closer “Magnolia Blvd.”

The final act of course was the thirtieth anniversary tour of GWAR, their second sojourn since the untimely passing of Oderus Urungus.  It would have been perfectly reasonable to expect that an anniversary tour would be chock full of nostalgia and random, gleefully sordid memories of yesteryear.  Say what you will about GWAR, but they have never been a band that looks backward, and so this tour would be no different. Where the last outing left us with the forlorn and failing mission to save Oderus from the perils of a time vortex he had been lost in, this new adventure picks up in a more corporeal setting.  The band, still trying to find their way in the wake of their loss, comes to find out that the internet at large is trolling them, and thus in typical somewhat-well-intentioned GWAR fashion they take steps to kill the internet.  Along the way is the usual spate of blood and gore and genuinely funny banter centered on otherwise outrageously offensive subject matter.  GWAR, as ever, is so adept at engaging in the absurd that what would be scandalously inappropriate in any other social conversation seems perfectly at home here.

The only indication that GWAR was willing to acknowledge the passing of thirty years was that they unearthed a lot of old material that fans had likely stashed away in their memory as songs that ‘GWAR doesn’t play anymore.’  Chief among these selections, to the surprise of the gathered throng, was “Jack the World” known to GWAR fans mostly as ‘that song on “This Toilet Earth” that ISN’T “Saddam A Go-Go.”  Not content to stop the memory train there, GWAR soldiered through a goodly chunk of their back musical forty, including going all the way back to heartfelt recitations of “I’m in Love (With a Dead Dog)” and “Captain Crunch” from 1988’s “Hell-O.” 

What’s important to note is that GWAR approached both new and old material (of which the balance was about an even split,) with equal fervor and dedication.  Continuing in the new GWAR workflow, the band lets different members take their assorted turns at the lead vocals, which does lend for a rangy performance.  That said, Blothar carries the bulk of the material himself, leading the collective way through “Madness at the Core of Time,” and other popular new material including the seminal “Metal Metal Land.”  In this regard, the band has lost no steam at all, each individual musician remains just as talented as ever, which has been an increasingly important trait of GWAR in the last ten years.

That said, the show still isn’t the same without Oderus.  It’s still enjoyable and highly entertaining, and watching the band tear the skin off of and defeat ‘The Internet Troll’ at the show’s climax still gives a sense of reward to the viewer; none of that has been altered.  Nevertheless, the boots of Oderus remain difficult to fill.  Not impossible, as this tour already shows the band at a greater level of cohesion than the previous, but it will take time.

In the here and now, GWAR as ever remains GWAR.  There will always be “Sick of You,” there will always be colored fluid, and it will always be a show worth seeing.  That’s really the bottom line.