Album review – GWAR – The Return Of Gor Gor

GWAR celebrate 40 years as a band in 2025 – though if you follow their lore, you’ll know the self-proclaimed Scumdogs Of The Universe have actually been knocking around for millenia.

In 2014, the band’s leader, Oderus Urungus, aka Dave Brockie, sadly passed away. Oderus’ death, we’re told, led to the disappearance of GWAR’s pet T-Rex, Gor Gor, now “a 20-foot tall trans-species prostitute”, according to vocalist Blöthar the Berserker. This new offering therefore chronicles what happened to Gor Gor while he was gone.

None of this means much if you’re not a fan of these veteran rockers whose records – let’s be honest – are mostly an excuse for legendary live shows that include gory dismemberments and geysers of bodily fluids.

It doesn’t necessarily help the uninitiated that The Return Of Gor Gor is half new material – mixed by Converge’s Kurt Ballou, no less – and half live stuff. The latter includes the instrumental America Must Be Destroyed, now with added Donald Trump samples, and Fishfuck, from 1999, which typifies the obscene lyrics that resulted in GWAR once losing a distribution deal with Warner Bros. Records.

What’s more, The Return Of Gor Gor is a multimedia release bolstered by a 32-page comic, which, while true to GWAR’s genesis as performance artists, isn’t the easiest sell for the newbie. (Those people should seek out the exceptional documentary, This Is GWAR, from 2021.)

It would be a shame if this didn’t convert some people, though, because the three new songs – The Great Circus Train Disaster, Lot Lizard, and Tyrant King – are an absolute hoot and elevated by exceptional guitar work from Grodius Maximus, aka Tommy Meehan.

If only we could have had a few more fresh cuts, though, considering what a belter 2022’s The New Dark Ages record was, and what an opportunity there was to capitalise on it. Still, if you like your noise to be trashy and undisciplined, or are looking for old school thrills, this gateway to GWAR-dom awaits.

Verdict: 3/5

For fans of: Ghoul, Municipal Waste, Gama Bomb

The Return Of Gor Gor is released on July 25 via The Pit Records