GWAR

Lust In Space

Written by: PP on 28/09/2009 21:13:16

I used to think about monster rockers GWAR as an intriguing marketing experiment, given that their moderate mainstream success can almost entirely be attributed to their fantasy themed monster costumes than actual songs. All previous GWAR material has been average at best, mediocre at worst in my mind, you see, so I refuse to believe that without the costumes they would've sold even half the amount of records that they have to date. But thanks to Finnish fantasy/monster rockers Lordi winning Eurovision with their horridly commercial and see-through pop metal, GWAR will now forever remain embedded as another gimmick band in my mind whether they deserve such a label or not. The world is unfair, yada yada yada, but that's how it is.

"Lust In Space" is their 11th studio album, revolving around a concept approaching bizarre and/or absurd even on this band's scale, and I quote from Wikipedia:

"This time around, GWAR manages to steal a Scumdog ship and prepares to finally leave Earth; however, Cardinal Syn returns and plans an attack. GWAR then seeks the help of Zog, an old Scumdog commander who trained Oderus, to help them. However, it turns out that he's become nothing but old and homeless. GWAR eventually sets everything straight and leave Earth, promising to stop on tour, and keep us all up to date on their activities."

Right, a question everyone! What type of person would actually pop on the album based on that description? Unless you're a Star Trek geek (Star Wars is 1000 times better, come on) or 13 years old and just discovering sci-fi, the subject is, like About.com puts it, "outrageously stupid", although i wouldn't exactly refer to it as a 'pro' like they do. But even if you get past the supposed hilarious joke that I'm definitely (still) not getting, the punked up thrash that GWAR delivers isn't exactly the type of stuff that ends on annual best of lists. There's a distinct flavor of old school punk and hardcore amidst the technical guitar leads that have been thrown in for good measure, with the occasional divergence into (as far as I know) new territory for GWAR: breakdowns more familiar to metalcore fans than the thrashers GWAR is after. I'll readily admit that a song like "Damnation Under God" has enough melodic riffs in the chorus part to make it at least distantly catchy, and that "Metal Metal Land" is a song that'll have you pumping your fist in the air because of it's simple three chord hardcore execution, but as a whole, the band (still) isn't catchy and/or technical enough to appeal to others than metal loving Star Trek fans. It's a display of brilliant marketing minds who share a common passion for metal, but like GR put it in his Wacken review, does anyone actually care?

Download: Damnation Under God, Metal Metal Land
For the fans of: Lordi, X-Cops, Green Jelly
Listen: Myspace

Release date 18.08.2009
AFM Records

Related Items | How we score?
Comments
comments powered by Disqus

Legal

© Copyright MMXXIV Rockfreaks.net.