Customer Reviews

Carnival of Chaos

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I don't care what ANYONE says, this is one of my FAVORITE GWAR CDs. They go out on a different path on this one, and it's a good change. The songs are catchy and cool. It's a very creative album. Some GWAR fans think everything has to be heavy, heavy, heavy. Heavy isn't everything. This album has heavy moments, but for the most part, it's a great rock/punk concept album.

Fan of GWAR since '99, I have loved these guys. I just got America Must Be Destroyed and this one. AMBD is a very heavy album laden with gross lyrics and The Road Behind is the song that I remember the most. As for this one, I got it because I read so many bad reviews of it online and I couldn't believe that these guys could make a bad album. I bought Hell-O! and loved it! I bought this not expecting a lot seeing as how it is considered worse than Hell-O!, but I got something I didn't expect. I found my new favorite album, replacing War Party! I don't know why, but this album is just spectacular. I don't have Scumdogs, Ragnarok, or The Road Behind EP, but I still think this might be their best. I don't know why I like this one so much, but it just hit a nerve with me on the first listen. Any GWAR fan should own this one, even if they don't listen to it. It's not nearly as heavy as some of their other releases, but I don't like GWAR just because they can be really, really heavy, although I know they can be. I look for songs that I can remember and this one is chock full of them.

1. Penguin Attack - An awesome, in your face song about an attack of mutant penguins. Pretty funny lyrics and the music is awesome.
2. Let's Blame the Lightman - A great song musically, but not so much lyrically. It is pretty catchy.
3. First Rule Is - Great heavy song about something, but I don't know what it is. Awesome guitars and drums.
4. Sammy - One of my personal favorites! This song is an epic with just awesome music and the vocals compliment it very well.
5. Endless Apocalypse - My second favorite! I just love this song. The lyrics are great, but the best part is the music.
6. Billy Bad Ass - A bit odd, but still pretty good. Not so much funny, but just catchy.
7. Hate Love Songs - I love this song and Beefcake has the perfect vocals for this song. The lyrics are very good and this song could be on the radio.
8. Letter From the Scallop Boat - A very good song that seems like Oderus was either drunk, high, or both. The lyrics are pretty odd, but the music and the beat are there.
9. Pre-skool Prostitute - Very funny song with awesome guitars, but the best part is the drums. Jizmak rules this song without a doubt.
10. If I Could Be That - The lyrics are very repetitive but the song is oddly catchy. A great song that seems like it shouldn't be.
11. In Her Fear - I really didn't expect this to be very good looking at the lyrics, but it really snagged me and wouldn't let me go.
12. Back To Iraq - A great song for war veterans, but a pretty hard song for this album. I think it could have worked on AMBD as well.
13. I Suck on My Thumb - A very, very weird song. I found myself reading it wondering if I should skip it, but then I heard it and I loved it.
14. The Private Pain of Techno Destructo - Another excellent song from Techno Destructo that is an excellent hard rock, not exactly metal, sounding song.
15. Gonna Kill U - A song called Gonna Kill U. I thought it would be heavy, but boy was I surprised and I think that it works better the way it is.
16. Sex Cow - My favorite on this album! Not because of the title, but because when I heard the beginning I laughed so hard. I didn't know that when they said it sounded like a Hillbilly song, that they literally meant that it sounded like a Hillbilly song. It is hilarious!
17. Antarctican Drinking Song - A short but hard song. It is fun to sing along with and sounds just like a drinking song.
18. Don't Need a Man - Slymenstra's slow song that I thought was very different for this band. I listened to it, because I love so many different styles of music, and it is absolutely wonderful. Sly can really sing.

I love this album because every song to me is a winner. I thought This Toilet Earth was their most diverse, but I was wrong. This album really showcases GWAR's talent as musicians, but with some of the lyrics they've been writing lately I think that they could make an album that could rule this entire nation, maybe even the whole world. I'd rather they stay under the radar though so as to avoid censorship. GWAR is the greatest band ever and I will always love them. Pick this up and make your own decision, don't avoid what could be your favorite because of a lot of negative reviews.

P.S. I'm not lying, this is my new favorite album. GO OUT AND GET IT!

I don't care what anyone else says, this is a good GWAR album, Yeah these other guyes say that these songs make no sense, well, Hello its GWAR! I would not really take life advice from any of their albums. The Scallop Boat song, Blame it on the Lightman and Penguin Attack are very good musically and have interesting
chorus changes after each break. The songs are crafty, borderline silly, but loads of fun. The guitar solos are nothing to write home about. I have most other GWAR CD's, but this one is still my favorite because sometimes you just gotta let loose and not take life so seriously!

This is usually looked at as Gwar's worst album, or one of them at least. Sure, they strayed from the metal sound we've gotten used to up to this point and decided to play up the humor angle and experiment with different styles. The metal's still here, but it's not constant and sometimes it's mixed with other music styles. Basically Gwar have done what Helloween did with Pink Bubbles Go Ape and Chameleon. I personally like this experimentation. Not every song is a winner of course. This is probably Gwar's longest cd, running over an hour, so you know not all 18 tracks can be winners. You'll actually be a bit surprised by how good some of the songs here are. In fact, I'd have to say some of Gwar's best songs can be found here. It's worth checking out. Gwar have since gone back to the metal sound that they're known for, but it's interesting to hear this musical detour along with We Kill Everything, which also is a bit different for them as well.

This is one Carnival worth going to. All the songs are full of meaning and uplifting lyrics, it's the perfect album to dance and mame to. The songs that stand out are "Penguin Attack" "In her fear" "Sex Cow" and everyones favorite, "Back to Iraq." Buy this album, your friends and parents will love you for it.

If you have'nt heard or seen GWAR you have'nt seen or heard anything

Where do I begin with this review....? I liked the slower pace on some of there songs instead of solid thrash metal from track one to the end!These are a very bizarre,obscene and weird group of musicians!Know, having said that I will give them credit for being unique and musically interesting!I'm not sure why they rely so much on shock style rock with there stage shows depicting decapitations and disembowelments of celebrities like OBama or Paris Hilton for example!Watching there videoes and listening to there music is like visiting a freak show that just came to town!You will either love GWAR or hate it there is really no in between!Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie have been doing the horror show theme for years with great success!I personally like GWAR, but there not on the same level as Alice or Rob there a totally unique sound all there own!I would recommend watching a video of GWAR before puchasing there music just to make sure you like it!

Hillery...

Carnival of Chaos is a hard review to make. On the one hand, the majority of its tracks are generic at best and downright dull at worst. On the other, the tracks that do work are some of the best that GWAR has ever recorded.

What goes wrong? Mostly, it's just how incredibly generic a lot of the album is. Tracks like Let's Blame The Lightman sound like several distinct song ideas were just edited together, and have no sense of continuity aside from repeating past riffs ad nauseam, as in Endless Apocalypse. The only portion of most songs that will keep your head banging is Jizmak's always excellent drumming. There's a lot of catchy stuff in there, it's just not linked to make anything greater than the sum of its parts. The lyrics can be extremely hard to understand- in fact, a quick rule for the album is that the harder it is to understand the lyrics, the worse the track those lyrics appear in.

What goes right? Flip the rule about being able to understand the lyrics, and you come to mostly outstanding tracks. In album order, the better tracks are Penguin Attack, Hate Love Songs, The Private Pain Of Techno Destructo, Gonna Kill U, and Don't Need a Man. Hate Love Songs is notable for having bassist Beefcake the Mighty as lead vocalist, Don't Need a Man for starring Slymenstra Hymen, Private Pain for Techno Destructo, and Gonna Kill You is a parody country ballad by Oderus. Thus, where it shines, the album is incredibly varied and even a touch experimental. There's a lot going on all over these tracks, and it's a shame so much of the rest falls flat.

A lot of reviewers claim this album hearkens back to GWAR's seminal Scumdogs of the Universe, mostly in that the failed tracks tend to be very punk. I feel these elements are more of a lead-in to We Kill Everything, an album so bad that of later albums GWAR was noted as saying the world breathed a sigh of relief that GWAR didn't release another We Kill Everything. I can say however that there is some of the best early GWAR here and those elements outshine the rest, especially with Techno and Slymenstra featuring prominently. Fans of GWAR's early days will definitely love this album. I give 4 stars out of 5 because the good tracks are so good that my collection is hollow without them, but I don't give a full 5 because of the rest.

If you're a true bohab (GWAR fan), you need to own the whole discography anyway. If you're not already a fan, shoot for later albums if you want more metal sounds, or Scumdogs for more of GWAR's comedy and punk sides. This album is best for longtime fans who need the elusive few great tracks on here to round out their collection and remind them of this era of the band.

I think this is GWAR's most underated album. Apparently a lot of GWAR fans don't like it, though it's gotten a lot of good reviews here. This is kind of an experamental record for GWAR. Sort of along the lines of "This Toilet Earth". It's not as heavy as other GWAR albums, though there are many heavy songs to chose from here. This record also features songs sung by: Beefcake- "I Hate Love Songs", Techno Destructo- "The Private Pain of Techno Destructo", and Slymenstra Hymen- "I Don't Need a Man". All 3 of these are really good songs! "The Private Pain of Techno Destructo" is actually a remake of "Techno's Song" from "Hell-o". This version is absolutly brilliant! One of the best songs on the record. It's much heavier and cleaner than the origional, and it shows just how good those songs off of their first album really are.

There's really not a bad song on this CD but I think it does take about 2 maybe 3 listens before you'll really fall in love with it. It's hard to pick a favorite amongst this cornicopia of songs but, my favorites would be: "Sammy", which is a song about Sammy Davis Jr. "First Rule Is" which is a heavy and driving song, 'In Her Fear" which simply just kicks a$$, Techno's song, as I stated before, and "Letter From The Scollop Boat" which is in my opinion the funniest song since "Slaughter-rama" I laugh every time I hear it.

I think the fans that don't like this album, probably haven't given it much of a chance, or else they're just not open to any kind of change. But me, I miss this side of GWAR! It's very creative, funny, and no holds barred. Don't get me wrong I also love the other side of GWAR. "War Party" is an amazing album! But I think it would be very cool if every so often they gave us another "Carnival" or "Toilet Earth". After all some of GWARS very best music has come out of these two albums. And NOBODY makes music like this. At least not anything good.

This album just goes to show how talented GWAR really are. This album combines punk/thrash,metal,jazz,soft rock, oldschool punk,and Country. Most people say the album [stinks] and they turned soft. GWAR may have had 7 soft songs out of the 18 tracks the soft songs are "Sammy" "Endless Apocolypse" "Letter from the Scallop Boat" "In Her Fear" "I Suck on My Thumb" "Gonna Kill U" and Slymenstra Hymen's beautiful voice in "Don't Need a Man" People also say that there are no vile songs on this album, think again. Listen to "Preschool Prostitute" and "Sex Cow" and tell me there are no sick songs. This album also has guest vocalists such as Beefcake in the punk rock song "Hate Love Songs" Techno Destructo in "The Private Pain of Techno Destructo" and Slymenstra Hymen in the jazz song "Don't need a man" This album tells me that GWAR can do pretty much any kind of music they want to. This is definently a superb album. If you are reluctant on buying it why not purchase one here for (...) its not much, hey whaddya got to lose? c'mon give it a try.