Gwar - Beyond Hell review
| Band: | Gwar |
| Album: | Beyond Hell |
| Style: | Punk, Alternative metal, Hardcore, Thrash metal |
| Release date: | August 29, 2006 |
| A review by: | jupitreas |
01. Intro
02. War Is All We Know
03. Murderer's Muse
04. Go To Hell
05. I Love The Pigs
06. Tormentor
07. Eighth Lock
08. Destroyed
09. The Ultimate Bohab
10. One Who Will Not Be Named
11. Back in Crack
12. School's Out [Alice Cooper cover]
Two years have passed since the Scumdogs of the Universe last terrorized the PMRC to the glee of most metalheads out there who enjoy some good old-school thrash. War Party was indeed an excellent album and proof that GWAR does after all have the musical chops that nobody ever would have thought of accusing them of having. Sadly, Beyond Hell is not quite as good as its predecessor - some glaring faults prevent it from being an engaging listen from beginning till the end.
Simply speaking, GWAR really shouldn't do concept albums. Beyond Hell, although musically interesting, is seriously brought down by the over-the-top concept that all of the songwriting is geared towards. The result is that although there are some really great songs here, there is also some mediocre filler that I think was included here solely to push the somewhat uninteresting story of GWAR venturing into hell and kicking Satan's ass forward. The same is true for the lyrics (usually an accolade of GWAR albums). Sometimes they can be inspired but otherwise they follow the theme of the album too much and this takes a lot away from them. "Go to hell", "Destroyed", "One Who Will Not Be Named" are all really quite mediocre tracks. "Murderer's Muse" is too much like "Krosstika" from War Party. Luckily, the rest of Beyond Hell is much better, with some songs being pure gold. "Ultimate Bohab" is a very fun track with lyrics funny in the same way as "Slaughterama" was. "War Is All We Know" and "Back In Crack" are both awesome, blistering thrash metal that can easily compete with the masters of the style. "Tormentor" is a funny attempt at 'true' metal with none other than Devin Townsend singing epic backing vocals. Finally, "I Love The Pigs" has become one of my all-time favorite GWAR songs since it features not only a great melody but also lyrics that manage to be hilarious and quite terrifying at the same time.
Beyond Hell is still definitely one of GWAR's best albums and one of the best thrash albums of this year. Unfortunately, it is not as good as War Party or America Must Be Destroyed but then again, those albums are pretty hard to beat?
 | Written on 12.12.2006 by With Metal Storm since 2002, jupitreas has been subjecting the masses to his reviews for quite a while now. He lives in Warsaw, Poland, where he does his best to avoid prosecution for being so cool. |
Comments
Comments: 7
Visited by: 59 users
| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071  |
This being one of the best thrash albums this year is telling for the state of thrash this year. Thrash this year was totally atrocious. And yes it is one of Gwar's best albums, that just means it somewhere above total garbage. I never understood how people could praise Gwar's music for it has always been very badly executed punkish thrash, and nowadays extremely poorly executed thrash. No fresh ideas, shoddy musicianship and songwriting skills to say the least. Only redeeming factor for Gwar is their live show, which is hilarious, but also hard to stomach cause of their lack of good songs musicianship. Sorry, but this band has always been reagarded as total crap by and will need to substitute all their band members if they ever want to have a chance of releasing anything decent.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996 
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| PrettyMao Posts: 86  |
I never made it past their first two albums, Hell-o and Scum Dogs of the Universe... As much as I like Gwar I find all the other albums just to be repeats of the first two, but not as well thought out as teh first two (if you can call their perverted, grotesque, schtick a well thought out concept). Back then it was just an awesome concept with brilliant lyrics.... oh the nostagia!
---- The Mao loves you all!!! **KISS**KISS**
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| Tenebrarum Account deleted |
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| Dangerboner Lactation Cnslt Posts: 7262  |
I have only heard of few songs from this album, and I think the lyrics are hilarious. Pretty catchy stuff. BTW, I heard a bunch of their new stuff live and it kicked ass. I might look into getting this. The Alice Cooper cover song is really gay though.
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| Timelord Posts: 276  |
I have been a Gwar fan since Hell-o. Scumdogs and America Must be Destroyed are by far their best records with Ragnarok coming in a distant third. Gwar seemed to lose the mojo they had when recording those first few albums. I have seen them live 8 or 9 times and the music from other albums always sounds good live. They are just one of those bands that don't come across well on recordings. I though Violence Has Arrived and War Party were so so at best with Beyond Hell slightly below that. The albums that are unlistenable to me are This Toilet Earth and Carnival of Chaos. Which once again I saw those tours live and it kicked ass. I still enjoy Gwar without having to buy any new material from them because the live shows are so much fun. You just have totake Gwar for what it is. FUN!
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| theflyingmachine Posts: 499  |
Written by Timelord on 05.10.2008 at 23:09 I personally like Carnival of Chaos, but I can understand why you may not like that album. But I'm really surprised to see that you don't like This Toilet Earth...that album was a fucking masterpiece. As for America Must be Destroyed and War Party, I think those albums are a little overrated.
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| Coolingsrock Posts: 229  |
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