You’d buy Kerrang! and Raw back in the 80s and 90s (when magazines mattered, before the internet ruined EVERYTHING… I may have mentioned this before) and G.W.A.R would be there.
They’d come from some planet somewhere, I dunno. I never gave a toss for backstories then and I don’t now.
That said, G.W.A.R were ace. They were larger than life. They knew it was nonsense when their singer was covering the first few rows of the crowd with blood and Christ knows what else.
And the thing about them is, they’re still doing it—and they still don’t give a single shit about trends or anything else. They want to thrash. That is, if thrash was played by Frank Zappa. Because although for most of the time they are as “normal” as thrash gets, there’s always some weirdness lurking somewhere.
Which brings us to this. “The Return Of Gor Gor” is seven songs: three new and four live. It comes with a comic (if you like that type of shite. You probably like Lord Of The Rings and Game Of Thrones too, and thus are a weirdo) and a backstory about losing a pet dinosaur that I’m not even going to feign interest in.
What is brilliant though—and with G.W.A.R it was ever thus—is the new songs.
“The Great Circus Train Disaster” is a beauty of a start. Part thrash, part nursery rhyme, it crushes in a way that Messrs BälSäc, Beefcake, JiZMak, and Blothar (joined by the mighty shredder Grodius of the Maximus Clan) can. Music isn’t supposed to sound like this. It’s not supposed to work. It always does.
Produced by Kurt Ballou of Converge, “Lot Lizard” is a punky descent into hell, and the solo slashes.
“Tyrant King” ushers itself in on the back of some thunderous drumming and is a supreme example of how they’ve kept themselves at the forefront for four decades. Nothing is dated here.
The four live songs—recorded in 2024—start old-school with “Crack In The Egg”, and by the time they’ve done “The Founding Fathers”, it’s safe to say that Atlanta didn’t know what hit it.
And that’s before they’ve done a ten-minute version of “America Must Be Destroyed” in such a way that suggests they’ll happily do it themselves.
After that, “Fishfuck” sounds relatively normal. A feat in itself.
When it comes to G.W.A.R, you either get it or you don’t. One thing is for sure, though: they ain’t changing.
Rating: 7/10
