Hell-O
| Hell-O! | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
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| Studio album by Gwar | ||||
| Released | September 11, 1988 | |||
| Recorded | 1988 | |||
| Genre | Hardcore punk | |||
| Length | 38:31 | |||
| Label |
Shimmy Disc Records |
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| Producer | Kramer | |||
| Gwar chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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Shimmy Disc Records
S.010.CS (Cassette)
SDE 8910/CD 08-025221-10 (CD)
Metal Blade Records
Hell-O! is the debut album by Gwar. The album was released in 1988, on Shimmy Disc Records.
Gwar's angle on the album is that of a morbid punk band (a la The Mentors, The Misfits, Butthole Surfers) obsessed with debauchery, violence and toilet humor. The songs generally support the theme of the group quite well, expanding the band's concept to comic proportions and supporting the back story.
The band play sooth-sayers to the United States ("Americanized" and "Ollie North") and modern human civilization in general ("Slutman City"), who have come to torture and enslave Earth for their own perverse sadistic pleasures ("Time For Death", "Bone Meal", "War Toy", "I'm In Love (With a Dead Dog)" - a tender episode in canine-alien relations). Despite having superpowers, Gwar is not without enemies - a character known as Techno-Destructo has followed the band to Earth to recruit (or enslave) them to serve "The Master" in a holy jihad against the universe ("Techno's Song"). Don Drakulich plays Techno on the album (the part would soon be taken over by Hunter Jackson). Other songs follow similarly crazy themes - the "Gwar Theme" is a car-eating anthem, "Je M' Appelle J. Cousteau" features famous aquanaut Jacques-Yves Cousteau in a Dada-esque romp, and "AEIOU" disputes whether the English alphabet is the property of Satan or Gor-Gor (another Gwar character who would later surface in the song/video of the same name). "Rock N' Roll Party Town", the first song ever written by the band, concludes the album in scenes of rock debauchery vaguely reminiscent of Kiss (of whom the band, with their showmanship and larger-than-life personas, seemed to be an 80s underground version). The original vinyl album contained a comic book about the band, featuring artwork parodying Picasso's Guernica (renamed "Gwarnica" here) and poking fun at the "this is your brain on drugs" commercials ("This is your brain on Gwar..."). The album's cover art features the band gleefully terrorizing Earthlings (particularly skinheads, who would attend the band's early shows and harass them with heckling, violence and throwing food, such as toast, onstage) and bulldozing their bodies into ditches (a reference to the Nazi concentration camps in World War II).
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Wikipedia