In the world of Hard Rock music, few truly standout. A genre of music that has become watered down, has lost an identity, and has all been forgotten by most record labels, fortunately there are some bands out there still fighting. Heading the list over the last decade, American band Otherwise return in 2023 with their latest entry Gawdzillionaire.
Released back on March 10th through Mascot Records, it marks the band’s sixth overall studio record, which includs their self-titled 2006 independent album. Truly determined to succeed in a very challenging landscape, they were actually the first unsigned artist to chart #1 on Sirius XM Octane with the song “Soldiers” in 2012.
Resulting in them signing on with Century Media Records, they would begin to get some legitimate exposure touring with the likes of Lacuna Coil, among others. With this, their 2012 album True Love Never Dies charted highly and put the band on the map. Following up strongly, 2014’s Peace at All Costs and 2017’s Sleeping Lions also did quite well. Moving over to Mascot Records in 2018, the band also went through some relatively big changes. With only the founding brothers (Adrian and Ryan Patrick) remaining, they added Joe Conner on drums in 2019, releasing Defy later that year. Also, a very good album, Otherwise look to making their biggest impression to date with the aforementioned Gawdzillionaire.
An album made up of twelve songs, Otherwise do not mince words in their approach. The songs are very topical, real to life, and dare to tackle the elephant in the room. What does this mean? It means that Otherwise are fearless in face of societal trends and are provocatively discussing how unbalanced everything truly has become. With this, they take an honest look at the damage social media has done to all of us, and acknowledge that most are living in fear, all while calling out the hatred we are being fed.
Bold and refreshing, what really brings the messaging home is the solid songs that make up Gawdzillionaire. Each offering something slightly different musically, lead single “Full Disclosure” naturally leads the battle with a calling out all the hollow people in the world trying to control thought and opinion From here songs like “New Way to Hate” is explicitly truthful, “Failure” urges us to stand up for what we believe, and “Hollywood Minute” reminds us that social ideals should not be set by the plastic people up in the hills. Additionally other standouts include the title-track which brings to light that we need to not be puppets on string just feeding a machine, while “Paradise” (featuring Butcher Babies’ Heidi Shepherd) could be viewed as a metaphor for the addiction many have in the empty dopamine trip of social media. And if these are not enough, “Camouflage” could be the best song of this entire set.
Overall, Gawdzillionaire is an album with a mission. Not preachy, but more observationally expressing what is happening right in front of our eyes, it is an urgent wake-up call to the masses. Bringing it all together is the really cool cover of Blind Melon’s “No Rain” which almost feels like the band’s plea, that while they are outside the mainstream of thought, they will not fade away. A killer album that should be heard, Cryptic Rock gives Gawdzillionaire 4.5 out of 5 stars.
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