GWAR

PUSTULUS MAXIMUS and BALSAC THE JAWS OF DEATH discuss exactly what you’d expect super-powered outer-space al iens to talk about: old-school vs. new-school gear

- Gregory Adams

COUNTRY AS F*** Within the pages of the new record’s accompanying graphic novel, GWAR in the Duoverse of Absurdity, the group find themselves staring into a magic mirror that puts them face-to-face with darker, alternate versions of themselves... The other GWAR is a successful country band.

BACK TO BASICS “I used the least amount of stuff on this record than any other GWAR record I’ve ever made,” Pustulus Maximus says.

GWAR’s NEW DARK Ages album finds the infamously blood-spilling metal monsters dealing with “the specter of rogue technology” the only way they can: goofily and gorily. The album naturally has co-guitarists BalSac the Jaws of Death and Pustulus Maximus cleaving through barbarically brutal riffs, sometimes while vocalist Blothar putridly pontificates on self-mutilation (“The Cutter”). There’s also razor-sharp smartphone satire in the form of “Venom of the Platypus,” where GWAR ask a digital, duckbilled Siri stand-in named Raspy to root out stock tips, free shipping options on sword purchases — and the best place to buy phlegm. The band explains to Guitar World that this is all taking the piss out of us lowly humans for “being led astray by a little 3-inch screen in front of you.” Steel trap-mouthed BalSac elaborates on our folly: “No one uses their brain anymore. Just ask your phone and it’ll tell you what you want to hear, whether it’s the truth or not.