Carnival of Chaos

Ah, Carnival of Chaos, the beginning of the end of an era; part 1 of an ungodly duology that brought GWAR to the lowest point of their career. This is an album that signified the end of an era for GWAR and was partially responsible for bringing the band to their knees, castrating them and leaving them for dead. And the worst part of it all? I don’t think this album is all people prescribe it to be, and in fact I kind of like it! When looking at the album, CoC sort of acts as ‘back to basics’ GWAR album, ditching any bizarre gothic/avantgarde thrash elements from Ragnarok. Instead, CoC pays greater tribute to the tounge-in-cheek punk roots the band is so well known for, like ‘Hell-O’ or ‘This Toilet Earth’ and turning up the goof factor even further than those two albums put together. I’d also like to make clear that while I don’t despise this album, it’s no doubt bad; it’s lucky enough to have some killer songs is all and then some. The album is a time waster, nothing more and nothing less: it’s something to burn over the course of an hour, cherishing the great songs, resenting the bad ones and scratching your head over the confusing ones. Calling this full-length, “Carnival of Chaos”, was the most accurate thing GWAR has ever done.

One of the few things this album nails on the head is the production. This is honestly one of the best sounding GWAR albums, so much so that earlier efforts like ‘Toilet Earth’ and future ones ‘War Party’ beg for a sound like Carnival’s. Every instrument is clear, distinct and pops out in the mix, especially the bass with its impeccable twang. It’s also so deliciously gauche in that this is one of the most 90s sounding albums I’ve ever listened to. One may describe it as ‘dated’, but I prefer looking at it like a time capsule of sorts, a way for myself to transport myself to a time I didn’t get to experience. The only issue that arises out of this is more relevant in a later section, so I’ll keep it short for now. Depending on the track, the production either excels and electrifies the song to a whole other level or is like shocking a dead puppy in the vein hope it’ll come back to life. This will be a recurring motif so write that down, it’ll be on the test.

This album also features a shocking amount of all time GWAR classics, eternal in how much ass they kick and how much they animate a crowd when played live. ‘Private Pain of Techno Destructo’ and ‘Hate Love Songs’ are probably the album’s most favored and famous but are only two of CoC’s great selection! “Penguin Attack’ get’s me more hyped than it should with the B-movie monster theme and robotic chorus, ‘Let’s Blame the Lightman’ with its harmonic riffs and catchy hooks, ‘If I Could Be That’ and that amazingly mid-paced guitar solo and epic riffs, the list goes on and on. However, as much as I can sing praise to tracks like ‘Back to Iraq’ and ‘Don’t Need a Man’, I can speak ill of over half of this album as well. I may be a bit generous to previous albums when I say this, but I genuinely believe CoC is the first GWAR album to feature BAD songs. Not songs I passively ignore, or even skip, but songs that I actively dislike and hate. Have you ever heard of momentum? GWAR apparently did for their first three songs and then abruptly gave up on tracks 4 and 5 with slow, rock-like ballads that kill any and all energy up until that point. They SUCK so much, and are an absolute drag to sit through, especially considering the snail like pace they trudge along with. This type of slow ballad worked on ‘America Must be Destroyed’ because A.) It was at the end of the album, and B.) It was actually well written. Then there’s the music genre-fuckery that results in quagmires like ‘Sex Cow’, ‘Gonna Kill U’, ‘Billy Bad Ass’, etc. These experiments in genre bending and fiddling are drastically different from the other tracks and give me whiplash. Not just from how varied they are, but from how much they suck as well. Brockie does his damndest to sell them with his wide vocal performance but goes way too far into the realm of novelty and ends up sounding like a dancing monkey, begging us to laugh at the pitiful display. Another thing worth noting is that this is probably the least metal GWAR album, relying more on alternative/punk rock that was no doubt popular at the time. The least they could’ve done would be to emulate what was popular at the time WITHOUT insulting my ears. Half of this album is filler and could’ve been cut for a shorter album that doesn’t blow ass. This album also omits most of the track ‘Drop Drawers’, only appearing as a ghost track at the last minute of the ‘Don’t Need a Man’. It’s a shame too, as I quite enjoy the quirkiness of it.

‘Carnival of Chaos’ is the most appropriate title that could grace this hour and 14-minute-long test of patience. You’ll be bombarded with awesome tracks and fiery riffs of punk infested fun, only to be sucker punched and jabbed with arrows of disappointment, bewilderment and eventually, anger. Wait, I have a better album title! How about, ‘Bacchanal of Bipolarness’? Ooh! What about, ‘Festival of Filler’? Maybe ‘Carnival of a Cock-Up’? Remember when I said the production only helps certain songs? That’s due to it not being compatible with fucking honkey-tonk and other mid paced mediocrity. It’s the classic symptom of the album working against itself, creating a mish mash of ideas that need a restraining order’s worth of space between them to remotely work at all. It’s hit or miss, and this Carnival has so may misses that it should take a breathalyzer to make sure it can drive home without hurting anyone else. The performances are there, the writing is here in spots and it sounds great! You’d think GWAR was trying to kill their career at this point. So, what comes after this? An album that’s even more insufferable? Joy.

For a band with such an intense and devoted fanbase like GWAR’s, it’s interesting that few bother discussing their middle period in favor of their scummy thrash-punk roots or their modern thrash/groove entries. One listen to very late 90’s GWAR eliminates any mystery as to why this is the case: both albums after Ragnarok fucking suck in their own special way. With a lack of any truly great songs and an overabundance of gimmickry, both We Kill Everything and Carnival of Chaos should continue to be ignored by anyone with even a passing interest in what they might contain.

This particular album, Carnival of Chaos, is kind of like the second coming of This Toilet Earth (or the third coming of Hell-O) in that the base sound seems to be distantly rooted in trashy punk, but most of the songs end up going all goddamn over the place anyway. Lyrical content is still up to GWAR’s usual standard, fairing somewhere between flagrant obscenity and intentional immaturity. Songs like “Pre-skool Prostitute” and “Sex Cow” place on the same track-list as “I Suck On My Thumb,” “I Hate Love Songs,” and “Gonna Kill U.” What band but GWAR could this be? But consistency, as usual, is gone with the wind. Much of CoC is some mutant variety of alternative/groove metal mishmash, with bloated, rock-inspired slogs in the vein of “Endless Apocalypse” or “Sammy” boring everyone with their repetitive melodicism in between more conventional but equally unenthusiastic chuggers like “Penguin Attack” or “First Rule Is.” “Let’s Blame the Lightman” has a neat harmonic riff in it, but is otherwise average, and it’s the best song on this album by far. I’ve heard this album inaccurately described as nu-metal, but even it’s most metal moments are barely better than such. The lyrical content is also about as uninspired as it’s ever been, tending to rely on annoying repetition rather than any degree of comic wordplay. Everything about this record is just so blunt and stupid. “Well yeah, it’s GWAR” you might reply. Except now to the nth degree, and without any of the catchy songwriting, instrumental craftsmanship, or general charm that manifests on most of their releases.

The album gets worse as it progresses, becoming ever more focused on novelty styles and rock clichés. The middle of the album is particularly dreadful: I couldn’t honestly tell you anything about certain tracks like “In Her Fear” or “If I Could Be That” despite having just listened to the album, they’re simply that unremarkable. There are a lot of alt-rock elements: some clearly parodied, others sound more sincere, all are pretty awful. There’s also Slymenstra’s awful lounge solo, “Don’t Need a Man,” which has value only for the ridiculous sight of Balsac the Jaws of Death wearing a tuxedo playing the piano for the video. There’s also some bad country bits, wimpy pop punk, and a lot of wasted potential as this pitiful excuse for a GWAR album drones on for over an hour.

Ugh, what else….the production has a muted quality to it, the cover art is boring, and all the instruments sound like shit. At the end of the day, the devoted GWAR-head will probably not rest until this too is a part of their collection. Guess that isn’t me, because I don’t want it in any part of mine.