Gwar – We Kill Everything (1999)

May 7, 2023

On GWAR’s 7th studio album (8th if you count the soundtrack stuff they did), it would be easy to accuse them of going astray from their true sound. I think however, that would be an ignorant thing to say. Sure, it looks that way on the surface, but if you think about the Death Piggy days, and even the debut Hell-O, punk has always been a part of GWAR’s ethos. Sure, 90s-to-the-core “punk rock” stuff like this *hasn’t* always been a part of GWAR’s sound, but hey, it’s still punk. And c’mon, we can only take GWAR so seriously. Excellent musicians they may be, but this is clearly a piss take, as we say here in Blighty.

Either way, I loved this fucking record when I was a teenager. It was so fucking stupid and purile, I loved every second. From the shock factor of opening tracks “Babyraper” (“I’m the fucking baby raper!” – what an insane chorus) and “Fishfuck” (“Fishfuck, baby! I’m gonna fuck you with a fish!”), to the slightly longer-form of GWAR-universe concept tracks such as “Escape From The Mooselodge” and “We Kill Everything”, this album is a strange mixed bag of odd and puzzling vibes. Oh, and only GWAR could intersect all this tomfoolery with an instrumental piece called “A Short History of the End of the World (Part VII (The Final Chapter (Abbr.))”.

Ok, so We Kill Everything loses itself in the middle, I’ll admit. But, the final 5 songs return to the shlocky mess-about punk of the opening tracks, and everything is well again. I’m not entirely sure what the fuck Oderus is going on about in “Penile Drip” but I love every second of it. Oh, and if you haven’t had a drunken sing-along to “Fuckin’ An Animal” then truly, you haven’t lived.

I’m not willing to spend any more time on this review.