For those unfamiliar with GWAR’s intergalactic heavy metal sci-fi lore, leader Blóthar the Berserker is more than happy to explain the title of the band’s 40th anniversary release, a part-studio, part-live conceptual extravaganza that strives to capture the GWAR experience. “Gor Gor was a pet T. rex we birthed by injecting crack cocaine into a dinosaur egg that we discovered,” he tells Apple Music. “Gor Gor eventually would turn against us and rage and destroy cities. We didn’t mind the destruction so much, but he was very aggressive towards us. So we killed him.” As the title implies, Gor Gor is back. But it’s not necessarily the same Gor Gor that was birthed on GWAR’s 1988 debut, *Hell-O*. “We’ve had all kinds of Gor Gors,” Blóthar clarifies. “This particular Gor Gor is a female, but her pronoun is ‘we.’ And they want revenge on us for being shitty.” Moral of the story? “They really should have breeding restrictions against Tyrannosaurus rexes,” Blóthar says. Below, he comments on each track. **“The Great Circus Train Disaster”** “This song was inspired by a trip that some of our members took to VAMPA, the vampire museum in Pennsylvania. One of the things they saw there was a charred Ouija board that had been involved in a circus train crash during World War I. Within the context of GWAR, this is the story of a group of circus freaks who perform a séance and summon Gor Gor’s mother during the process of birth. Then she’s struck by a train, and all kinds of bad things happen: She dies, and most of the circus people die. Little baby Gor Gor is left with a few remaining survivors of the circus freak show.” **“Lot Lizard”** “Gor Gor flees the circus and winds up turning tricks. They’ve got to make a living, so they’re out there sucking dick at a truck stop. This song also gives us a chance to celebrate lot lizards. We’re not picking on them—it’s not like those people need to be taken down a peg or two. The song does kind of celebrate choice as an aspect of sex work. Gor Gor is saying, ‘Look, I don’t need you preaching to me or trying to change me. This is what I want to be. Maybe I need help, but I don’t need your condescension.’ Also, sucking dick isn’t a vocation you want to have as a Tyrannosaurus because you don’t get a lot of repeat customers.” **“Tyrant King”** “Gor Gor has been around as long as the band. In the very earliest photos of GWAR, you can see our first pet dino Gor Gor—a guy on two five-gallon buckets wearing a bunch of camouflage cloth with a big papier-mâché GWAR head. He was in ‘Aeiou’ on the first album, and then we told his story on *America Must Be Destroyed* a few years later. This new song is the most modern telling, but it takes a similar viewpoint as the original, which is telling the story of a dinosaur that destroys American cities, wreaks havoc and wreaks revenge on GWAR.” **“Crack in the Egg” (Live)** “This song fits our narrative because ‘Crack in the Egg’ is essentially the birth of Gor Gor’s mother, the one that gets hit by the train. It’s also on *America Must Be Destroyed*. So, it recounts the story of how we shot the dinosaur egg full of crack. It’s one of our early attempts at a rock opera, where we had different characters saying stuff in the lyrics. It’s also just a good fucking song. It’s got a great riff written by the original Flattus Maximus, whose human slave was Dewey Rowell.” **“The Founding Fathers” (Live)** “In this song, we’re trying to use a time machine to bring back one of the founding fathers of the United States, but what we wind up doing is bringing back a hideous amalgamation of all the founding fathers stuck together into a giant creature that we fight and kill. That’s a big improv thing most nights on tour. And the most fun part of GWAR is the stuff that’s different every night.” **“America Must Be Destroyed” (Live)** “It’s the most expensive song we ever did. That’s because we had this guy in the band, Dave Musel, who did samples. He was awesome. He found all of these original sounds and samples, and he was very musical in the way he put them together. He wrote this instrumental and put a bunch of samples on it. But he used a lot of samples from The Last Poets, so we ended up having to pay The Last Poets a significant amount of money to use those samples. It was maybe not worth it, but we did get a really good GWAR song out of it that I think speaks to the creativity and musicality of the band.” **“Fishfuck” (Live)** “This is just a great and hilarious song. \[Departed GWAR founder and mastermind\] Dave Brockie hummed the bassline, and we wrote the song around that. We used to do stuff like that all the time. The song just makes me laugh every time. That line, ‘Gonna take a moa-moa and swim it up your butt’… I remember having to look that up, like, what the fuck is a moa-moa? It’s one of those giant fish that looks dead. But it’s a great punk rock ditty, man. It sounds like if The Misfits had intellectual disabilities.”
In their first decade as a nine-member K-pop girl group, TWICE became masters at exploring new facets of their concept without ever losing the unwavering cheerfulness that defines it. For *THIS IS FOR*, TWICE’s fourth full-length album since their 2015 debut, the third-generation squad slides into a comparatively subdued cool-girl persona to explore overlapping themes of female empowerment and romantic frustration, artfully navigating the space between K-pop’s “girl crush” and “bubblegum pop” false binary. The cool-girl persona is especially on display in *THIS IS FOR*’s title track, a high-energy song that starts with a chuckle and a shout-out: “This is for all my ladies who don’t get hyped enough/If you’ve been done wrong, then this your song, so turn it up.” TWICE makes room for feelings of otherness on “THIS IS FOR” before using the synth-pop bop “MARS” to expand on the theme: “Do you ever feel like/You don’t belong in the world?” The tale of tested confidence continues in the rolling rhythms of “G.O.A.T.,” a subunit song that has members Mina, Dahyun, and Chaeyoung comparing themselves to a phoenix rising from the ashes in the aftermath of a breakup: “Got me on a roll, yeah, I breathe fire/Try to bring me low but I go higher.” Released in TWICE’s 10th year as a K-pop group and in the immediate aftermath of the JYP Entertainment squad’s successful contributions to the *KPop Demon Hunters* soundtrack, *THIS IS FOR* sees the group also preparing for their This Is For world tour. The 14-track, mostly English-language album includes five subunit songs that fit particularly well into a high-energy set list as an opportunity for non-participating members to rest. In addition to “G.O.A.T.,” they include “BATTITUDE” (Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Momo, and Mina), “DAT AHH DAT OOH” (Sana, Jihyo, Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu), “LET LOVE GO” (Jeongyeon, Momo, Sana, and Tzuyu), and “TALK” (Nayeon and Jihyo).
Some may have balked at Loe Shimmy’s prodigious 2024, which featured no less than three projects and an opening spot on Lil Baby’s tour. Yet the payoff to this prolific rap hustle became abundantly clear as his Brent Faiyaz collab “For Me” charted strong and foreshadowed his subsequent placement on XXL’s coveted Freshman Class list. His second album to move away from a long-held Zed-centric title scheme, *Rockstar Junkie* finds the Florida native settling into fame without departing radically from the sound that got him to this level. From the cinematic scene-setting of “Tubi Movie” and “Private Party” to the reward-reaping hedonism of “Kill the Scene” and “Zuper Sonic,” his nonchalantly melodic delivery suits his distinctive instrumental choices. Furthermore, the robust features list connects his recent past with his elevated present, with established stars like Quavo and Trippie Redd joining returning figures NoCap and ffwaty. Don Toliver contributes to the bleary-eyed vibe of “3am,” while Brooklyn drill don Sleepy Hallow adapts to the mellow mood of “Super Dirty.”
The Terrys have described their song “Stay Free” as an anthem for laughing when the only other choice is to cry. The South Coast band’s third album is almost evenly split between that laugh/cry dichotomy, balancing their usual feel-good escapism with repeated tugs of melancholy. On the lighter side, “Catalonia Dreams” sees singer Jacob Finch slip into a breezy cadence that evokes 1990s-era California bands like Sugar Ray and Smash Mouth. “Spezial” and “Sorry Savage” get scrappier and more irreverent, but a sighing sense of reflection comes through loud and clear on tracks like “Matchstick” and “Eraser.” And if “Once Is Never Enough” initially scans as quite jaunty, its lyrics are considerably darker: Finch mentions selling his soul for another drink and sneaking off to partake in illicit substances before finding respite in summer daydreaming and the sweetness of love. Like kindred spirits Beddy Rays, The Terrys are gradually integrating notes of anxiety and depression into their once happy-go-lucky tunes as they work their way from carefree youth to more nuanced adulthood. Yet, rather than be a downer, it reflects a growing refinement in their reliably catchy songwriting.
