New WASP album - Golgotha

W.A.S.P.: 'Golgotha' Cover Artwork, Release Date, Track Listing Revealed


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W.A.S.P.: 'Golgotha' Cover Artwork, Release Date, Track Listing Revealed
W.A.S.P.'s fifteenth studio album, titled "Golgotha", will be released on October 2 via Austria's Napalm Records. The cover artwork for the CD can be seen below.

Commented W.A.S.P. mainman Blackie Lawless: "There are times in any band's career that somehow all things mesh together. Their experiences, influences, and personal timing bring them into a common space. This has happened with this record. Four years in the making has provided direction, but even greater reflection."

At the 2014 edition of the Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg, Sweden, Lawless stated about the lyrical inspiration for the upcoming CD: "'Golgotha' is Hebrew for place of the skull, and it's the hill where Christ was crucified. And it's interesting, when you see a lot of bands going around using Satanic images or images of death and things like that, and I'm thinking, all they need to do is look at the source, 'cause it's right there. I mean, if you want death, there's enough to go around there."

Regarding the musical direction of W.A.S.P.'s new material, Lawless said: "It sounds probably more similar to the last two that we've done [2007's 'Dominator' and 2009's 'Babylon']. And we've been working on this thing for four years now."

He continued: "I don't know if you guys heard, I had a little hiccup [in 2013], and that delayed recording for almost a year. I broke my leg. And that, too, was an interesting trip.

"But there's one thing that I learned when I was doing [1992's] 'The Crimson Idol': if you make a record over too long of a period of time, you have to be very, very careful, because the record you start out making is not the record you end up finishing, because you've changed so much as a person over a three- or four-year period, you've gotta be very, very careful to hold on to that vision. But from what I'm hearing so far, it has definite overtones of the last two records."

"Golgotha" track listing:

01. Scream
02. Last Runaway
03. Shotgun
04. Miss You
05. Fallen Under
06. Slaves Of The New World Order
07. Eyes Of My Maker
08. Hero Of The World
09. Golgotha

Drummer Mike Dupke recently left W.A.S.P. after a nine-year stint with the band. A replacement drummer has not yet been announced.




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I'm looking forward to hearing this...I'm glad there is all this info now, as I was a little concerned it'd end up, like, going away or something.

The cover is dumb looking though. You take off the WASP name and it looks like a generic cover for a generic late 90s kidn of band called Golgotha or something.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

IThe cover is dumb looking though. You take off the WASP name and it looks like a generic cover for a generic late 90s kidn of band called Golgotha or something.

Are you kidding me? That cover is great!!

BAD ASS cover! Looks haunting!

I agree the album cover is bland, expecting the music to be good though.

Bland? How? It's haunting, blood-red, dark symbolism...there's like an oppressive heat coming off of it...

I think the cover looks pretty bad-ass.

Yes HOW is it bland? Inquiring minds want to know!

Just boring to me. Crosses. Bird. Blood Red Sky. Metal. Put like a skull and knife or something and you have any fake album cover I drew in 7th grade (my fake band was called Dark Snake and we had many album covers. We also had many 90-minute albums recorded onto blank tapes that were me singing over pre-set sounds and music on a cheap keyboard [I liked the "UFO" sounds]--those tapes would sell well now in the black metal underground I'm sure).

WASP have done some really cool looking covers, some generic looking ones and one where Lawless is wearing a tiger bodysuit (that's both cool and uncool). Like Babylon, when I bought that CD it just made me want to stare it while I was listening to because I liked the cover so much. This one is just boring to me. Still stoked to hear the music though.

Quote :

Crosses. Bird. Blood Red Sky. Metal.

All those things make it cool...haha!

So, the Babylon cover having the 4 Horsemen is awesome, but the Golgotha cover having crosses on it is bland? Having crosses (and a skull, now that you mention it) ties directly into the title.

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

Quote :

Crosses. Bird. Blood Red Sky. Metal.

All those things make it cool...haha!

So, the Babylon cover having the 4 Horsemen is awesome, but the Golgotha cover having crosses on it is bland? Having crosses (and a skull, now that you mention it) ties directly into the title.

Well, yes, in my opinion.

Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

But honestly, with all the bad album art out there in Metal, I don't see much to complain about with this one. It fits the title, the vibe of the band, and genre well. It seems to me that, when stuff like that gets picked apart, some people just want something to complain about.

In my opinion.

Looking forward to hearing it. And I think the cover looks good.

The artwork is okay but the logo and fonts suck. The album title looks like something rejected from a Monster Energy Drink can and the band name is oddly placed. Not that any of that matters in the long run.

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

But honestly, with all the bad album art out there in Metal, I don't see much to complain about with this one. It fits the title, the vibe of the band, and genre well. It seems to me that, when stuff like that gets picked apart, some people just want something to complain about.

In my opinion.

Well, I didn't intend to complain or pick it apart. Just made a comment, as the art was 1/3 of the info I had been curious about (song titles and release date making up the other 2/3). Someone asked what made it bland (replying probably specifically to the guy who said "it looks bland", but what the hell, I was the one who first commented on not liking it), so I answered what it was that I did not like about it. In my opinion.

People around these parts are getting so weird if you say you don't like cover art (Slayer thread). Cover art is never and will never be a determining factor on if I like the album...but when I don't like it, even if it's not as egregious a cover art monstrosity as whatever the worst metal album cover is, I'll likely comment that I don't like the art. It's part of the package.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

But honestly, with all the bad album art out there in Metal, I don't see much to complain about with this one. It fits the title, the vibe of the band, and genre well. It seems to me that, when stuff like that gets picked apart, some people just want something to complain about.

In my opinion.

Well, I didn't intend to complain or pick it apart. Just made a comment, as the art was 1/3 of the info I had been curious about (song titles and release date making up the other 2/3). Someone asked what made it bland (replying probably specifically to the guy who said "it looks bland", but what the hell, I was the one who first commented on not liking it), so I answered what it was that I did not like about it. In my opinion.

People around these parts are getting so weird if you say you don't like cover art (Slayer thread). Cover art is never and will never be a determining factor on if I like the album...but when I don't like it, even if it's not as egregious a cover art monstrosity as whatever the worst metal album cover is, I'll likely comment that I don't like the art. It's part of the package.

Cover art is important.  Most bands seemingly don't care or are too cheap to buy good artwork.  Frankly, most bands don't have any idea about what their artwork conveys about their album.

This same issue arose when we discussed the cover art for Black Sabbath's 13.  I see that as a lame title and lazy cover art from a band that should know better.  Others disagreed, Shawn in particular.

Take a band like Orchid.  They clearly understand that their artwork, logos and album titles all convey a message to the consumer.  It's no surprise that their lead vocalist is an artist and that he designs all of their artwork. For me, this is the icing on the cake that adds a little bit to the overall enjoyment of the album.  Other people don't care at all, and that's fine, but artwork is as open to criticism as any other part of an album.

Witchfinder wrote:

Cover art is important.  Most bands seemingly don't care or are too cheap to buy good artwork.  Frankly, most bands don't have any idea about what their artwork conveys about their album.

This same issue arose when we discussed the cover art for Black Sabbath's 13.  I see that as a lame title and lazy cover art from a band that should know better.  Others disagreed, Shawn in particular.

Take a band like Orchid.  They clearly understand that their artwork, logos and album titles all convey a message to the consumer.  It's no surprise that their lead vocalist is an artists and he designs all of their artwork. For me, this is the icing on the cake that adds a little bit to the overall enjoyment of the album.  

Yeah I dig Orchid's overall aesthetic quite a bit.

I don't remember if I participated in the 13 discussion, but I definitely think the title and art are just terrible. The album was way better than I anticipated, but that cover would never have enticed me to look into the record if I were just somehow discovering BS and knew nothing about them.

When a cover looks like Metal Church's 'Hanging In The Balance', then yeah, I get the ridicule.

But when a cover looks like 'Golgotha', which obviously looks like a Heavy Metal album cover, gets immediately labeled as "weak" or "bland" or whatever else, it just makes me think people are being overly critical.

I don't know...I like discussing music, and the aspects thereof, and it's not always positive.

I like discussing it too. I don't mean to sound like I'm singling you out. It just happened in this thread (like the 13 thread) that the cover art thing got to me.

Like I said, covers like 'Hanging In The Balance', the first Wolf album, etc, are obviously going to draw some ire and ridicule.

But, when an album cover is done well and looks like it belongs in Heavy Metal for a Heavy Metal album and still gets the same treatment, it bugs me. I'm like "What do you want??" In this case, if blood-red skies and ragged crosses don't look Metal, what does? Ha!

Also, not just here, I notice some people take to playing comedian trying to find the snarkiest way to put something down and sound funny doing it. It's like we all live in an episode of "World's Dumbest Criminals" and we're trying to be Danny Bonaduce with "Looks like a 3rd grader got hold of his parents' Photoshop program again!". That rubs me the wrong way.

It's my problem...but it bugs me.

I agree Shawn!

I missed the 13 cover discussion and I feel the same way that the art for it sucks. They should have known a lot better and let alone the album title was just as terrible. It turned out to b a great album though.

As for the WASP art here, I think it looks great. Is it cliche? Sure, A LOT of albums are cliche, BUT I think this one was done the right way.

I'm a W.A.S.P. fanboy so I'm in. The cover kinda reminds me of Dying For The World.

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

But, when an album cover is done well...

That's the discussion. Some people don't think that album cover is well done.

Ok, well I don't have much of a response to that. I don't see it changing. As I said, if I see art I don't like I will likely say as much (and likely try to make a joke in the process).

It's also not like I went on some internet style hate-fueled tirade proclaiming it an atrocity and the worst metal cover ever. Just that it was dumb and generic. I didn't even elaborate until the question as to what was not liked about it came up.

Something can look metal (I did say it looked like a generic 90s metal album cover) and still look dumb or generic. As to what I want? Nothing, I don't want anything. Even if the album sucks (I have liked/loved every WASP album recorded, so I expect it to be excellent, but IF it did suck), I don't want anything. Blackie Lawless doesn't owe me anything (though as I mentioned before, I did get a few black eyes wearing the Headless Children t-shirt in middle school--maybe he owes me for that, ha). But if it does suck, I would certainly say so...I'm not here to just post "Awesome album!!!" in every thread that pops up.

I like the cover and am really looking forward to the music.