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48-408: The concept of this album is the closest thing to a rock opera that Gwar has done since RagNaRok . The concept revolves around the band's journey to hell and their epic battle with the devil . The album follows the sound Gwar set with Violence Has Arrived and perfected with War Party . The album had previously been tentatively titled Go To Hell! and Greetings From Hell! . Beyond Hell

96-418: A bolgia ( Italian for 'pouch' or 'ditch'). Long causeway bridges run from the outer circumference of Malebolge to its center, pictured as spokes on a wheel. At the center of Malebolge is the ninth and final circle of hell, known as Cocytus . In Dante's version of Hell, categories of sin are punished in different circles, with the depth of the circle (and placement within that circle) symbolic of

144-587: A 9-ton crack boulder from Sleazy P. Martini , and pondering over how meaningless their quest was, as they were left with absolutely nothing but a ruined castle and the knowledge that their adventure at least "was good for some kicks". Rock opera A rock opera is a collection of rock music songs with lyrics that relate to a common story. Rock operas are typically released as concept albums and are not scripted for acting, which distinguishes them from operas , although several have been adapted as rock musicals . The use of various character roles within

192-448: A Gwar recording session. Ever since the announcement of the release of Beyond Hell (then known as Go to Hell ), the album's main theme has been known. As quoted from an announcement on Gwar.net: "[Beyond Hell] concerns Gwar’s epic journey into the tunnels and caverns that honeycomb your world, a journey not only to escape their earthly prison "from within", but also to find and confront this so-called " Satan ", who seems to think that he

240-464: A Memory , which has been regarded as Rock Opera. The album tells the story of Nicholas, a man getting flashbacks from a previous life, as he undergoes hypnosis sessions to recall the memories of Victoria, a young girl who he discovers was murdered as a violent result of a love affair. In an effort to appeal to more modern audiences, opera companies have welcomed more pop and rock influences. The resulting rock operas have met varying degrees of success as

288-612: A Rock Opera, operating on the premise that to write you need only 'something to say'." Mark Wirtz explored the idea in a project A Teenage Opera , from which an early song " Excerpt from A Teenage Opera (Grocer Jack) " recorded by Keith West was released and became a hit song in 1967. However, the album for the rock opera was not released until 1996, and it was only fully realised and staged in 2017. Colin Fleming of The Atlantic described The Story of Simon Simopath (1967) by British psychedelic band Nirvana as an "early foray into

336-506: A monk's cowl but are lined with heavy lead, symbolically representing hypocrisy. Also, Caiaphas , the Pharisee who insisted on the execution of Jesus , and all of the Sanhedrin are crucified in this circle, staked to the ground so that the ranks of the lead-weighted hypocrites march across him. This bolgia houses the souls of fraudulent thieves . In Inferno 24, the thieves are trapped in

384-483: A path which does not really exist. The ten ditches of the Malebolge, in descending order, are listed thus: Panderers and seducers are punished here. They are forced to march, single file around the circumference of their circle, constantly lashed by horned demons. Sinners guilty of excessive flattery are punished in this bolgia, immersed forever in a river of human excrement, similar to what their flatteries were. Thaïs

432-505: A quest for knowledge. Ulysses' last voyage draws many parallels to the pilgrim's journey in the Divine Comedy . Both embark on a journey for the pursuit of greater understanding. In Ulysses' case, his pursuit for knowledge was misguided, which ultimately led to his spiritual shipwreck. Unlike Ulysses, the pilgrim's journey is ordained by divine powers. Thus, the pilgrim's journey into the self will not end in disaster. In Inferno 27,

480-624: A result of traumatic life experiences. The album was included in Rolling Stone ' s lists of the greatest albums of all time in 2003, 2012, and 2020. James Guthrie, the album's engineer, won the 1980 Grammy award for Best Engineered Recording (non-classical), and the album was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year . The album was subsequently made into a 1982 film entitled Pink Floyd – The Wall . An elaborate 1980-1981 concert tour

528-409: A river of boiling pitch and tar . In addition, should any of the grafters try to escape the pitch, a horde of demons known as Malebranche , armed with grappling hooks and barbs, stand guard over them, ready to tear them to pieces. Hypocrites are punished in this bolgia. They are forced to wear heavy lead robes as they walk around the circumference of their circle. The robes are golden and resemble

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576-430: A self-perpetuating cycle of being bitten and bound by serpents , dragons and other vengeful reptiles . Thieves are bitten by snakes, turning their bodies into ash before spontaneously regenerating their bodies again for further torment. Others are bitten by snakes and are transformed into snakes that, in turn, minister the punishment onto other souls. Here, the souls turn against each other, reflecting how theft breaks

624-461: A subversively labeled musical . Clements states that lyrics drive rock operas, which makes them not a true form of opera. Responding to accusations that rock operas are pretentious and overblown, Pete Townshend wrote that pop music by its very nature rejects such characteristics and is an inherently simple form. Townshend said that the only goal of pop music is to reach audiences, and rock operas are merely one more way to do so. Peter Kiesewalter , on

672-556: A tour of the " Slave Pit " which is where all the costumes are made, and stored, as well as a short called "Meeting Dave Brockie " where the producers meet the man behind the Oderus mask, as well as mockumentary footage of producer Devin Townsend (whose name is misspelled "Townshend") meeting the band for the first time. The DVD was produced by metal producers Metal Injection, who included a bonus sketch of Russian journalist "Metal" Misha crashing

720-417: A while, eventually they are forced to retire as the enemy army nukes Gwar's castle, forcing them to withdraw to the underground, as is told in "Murderer's Muse". Lost, looking for a place to escape, they come across Jitler, a cross of Jesus and Adolf Hitler who tells them about how the caverns under Gwar's keep lead into Hell itself. Jitler agrees to lead them to Hell, however, they still get lost along

768-494: Is Jesus Christ Superstar (1970), written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice , and in respect of which Lloyd Webber said "the piece was written as a rock album from the outset and set out from the start to tell the story through the music itself." In 1972, David Bowie released the rock opera The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars . Bat Out of Hell is a rock album by Meat Loaf that remains one of

816-769: Is Muhammad , prophet of Islam and his son-in-law and successor Ali , who both eviscerate their own bodies, and Bertran de Born , alleged agitator of the Revolt of 1173–74 , who carries around his severed head like a lantern. Falsifiers, those who attempted to alter things through lies or alchemy , or those who tried to pass off false things as real things, such as counterfeiters of coins, are punished here. This bolgia has four subdivisions where specific classes of falsifiers (alchemists, impostors, counterfeiters, and liars) endure different degrees of punishment based on horrible, consumptive diseases such as rashes , dropsy , leprosy and consumption (known today as tuberculosis ). Among them

864-424: Is a bigger bad ass than Oderus . Along the way Gwar encounter's a bevy of demonic dickheads and hapless victims, all ready to die for your entertainment because they're all a bunch of assholes". The line "Abandon All [Your] Hope, Ye Who Enters Here" from Dante Alighieri's Inferno is used in the last verse in "Go To Hell!" The main outline of the album's plot is told in the lyrics, and it is expanded upon on tour by

912-552: Is one of the two albums by Gwar to have no other lead vocalist than Oderus Urungus (the other is Violence Has Arrived ). A single for Gwar's cover of Alice Cooper 's song " School's Out " was released for radio play before the release of the album, and a video for it was shot in August, premiering on MTV 's Headbangers Ball on August 19. Beyond Hell was produced by Devin Townsend of Strapping Young Lad (who also provided backing vocals in "Tormentor") and Cory Smoot . The album

960-471: Is then that the main enemy of the story, Jewcifer (a portmanteau of Jew and Lucifer , intended for satiric effect) appears and fights Gwar, eventually being defeated as Gwar summons Gor-Gor to bite the demon's head off, allowing Gwar to conquer Hell. However, their victory doesn't last long. Following the defeat of Jewcifer, the band find themselves back at their destroyed fortress ("Back in Crack"), receiving

1008-589: The Grammy Hall of Fame . Tommy would also go on to influence On and On , a rap opera by the Fat Boys and American Idiot , a punk rock opera by Green Day , the latter of whom having made 21st Century Breakdown , another rock opera. The Who had previously toyed with the concepts which would lead to the full-blown rock opera with their six-movement 1966 track " A Quick One, While He's Away ". A rock opera that experienced commercial recording and Broadway success

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1056-487: The Harlequin ), Calcabrina ('one who walks on the frost'), Cagnazzo ('bad dog'), Libicocco ('love notch' ), Draghignazzo (possibly from drago 'dragon' and sghignazzo 'guffaw'), Ciriatto (possibly 'little pork'), Graffiacane ('dog scratcher'), Farfarello ('butterfly'), Rubicante (possibly 'red' or 'rabid'), and a thirteenth Malebranche who was never named in the text. They try to trick Virgil and Dante by telling them of

1104-511: The Manchester Opera House in 2017. The album's producer, Jim Steinman , coined the term Wagnerian rock after composer Richard Wagner to describe the genre of the record. Perhaps the archetypal and most famous rock opera is The Wall , a double album released by Pink Floyd in 1979. The Wall chronicles the story of Pink, a character who ultimately constructs an emotional wall to protect himself after being driven into insanity as

1152-592: The best-selling albums of all time , having sold over 50 million copies worldwide. It is certified 14× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). As of June 2019, it has spent 522 weeks in the UK Albums Chart , the second longest chart run by a studio album. Rolling Stone ranked it at number 343 on its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time . A musical based on Bat Out of Hell , staged by Jay Scheib , opened at

1200-540: The hetaira is found there. Simoniacs are punished here. They are turned upside down in large baptismal fonts cut into the rock, with their feet set ablaze by oily fires. The heat of the flames burns according to the guilt of the sinner. Popes condemned to Bolgia Three all go into the same font, the earlier ones pushed down by the later arrivals. Pope Nicholas III is found here, and informs Dante that Pope Boniface VIII will follow. Sorcerers, astrologers, seers, and others who attempted to pervert God 's laws to divine

1248-511: The addition of a keyboard and a drum set". Malebolge In Dante Alighieri 's Inferno , part of the Divine Comedy , Malebolge ( English: / ˌ m æ l ɪ ˈ b ɒ l dʒ / MAL -ib- OLJ , Italian: [ˌmaleˈbɔldʒe] ; lit.   ' evil ditches ' ) or Fraud is the eighth circle of Hell . It is a large, funnel-shaped cavern, itself divided into ten concentric circular trenches or ditches, each called

1296-509: The amount of punishment to be inflicted. Sinners placed in the upper circles of Hell are given relatively minor punishments, while sinners in the depths of Hell endure far greater torments. As the eighth of nine circles, Malebolge is one of the worst places in Hell to be. In it, sinners guilty of "simple" fraud are punished (that is, fraud that is committed without particularly malicious intent, whereas malicious or "compound" fraud—fraud which goes against

1344-458: The band through skits between each song. The story starts with a theatrical introduction by a narrator-like figure, telling of how the "drunken brothers" of Gwar sleep, unaware of the situation around them. The story then picks up with "War Is All We Know", telling of the attack by the armies of humanity, led by the Nazi Pope on Gwar's Antarctic fortress. While the band manage to put up a defense for

1392-404: The biggest evils in the underworld inside. On tour, several demons are released from it and fight Gwar. The battle isn't over yet, and their next enemy comes off as a parody of decadent rock n roll lifestyle, a drugged-out demon of rock, named Toe E. Namel who, according to the lyrics on the song "Destroyed", killed himself by overdosing on heroin . This enemy is defeated. The story then tells

1440-411: The bonds of love, blood and honor, or the bond of hospitality—would be punished in the ninth circle). Sinners of this category include counterfeiters, hypocrites, grafters, seducers, sorcerers and simoniacs . Dante and his guide, Virgil , make their way into Malebolge by riding on the back of the monster Geryon , the personification of fraud, who possesses the face of an honest man 'good of cheer,' but

1488-423: The church or within politics. They are forced to walk around the circumference of the circle bearing horrible, disfiguring wounds inflicted on them by a great demon with a sword. The nature of the wound mirrors the sins of the particular soul; while some only have gashes, or fingers and toes cut off, others are decapitated, cut in half (as schismatics), or are completely disemboweled. Among those who are tormented here

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1536-497: The downfall of others. Here, the souls are burned in brilliant flames. In Inferno 26, the pilgrim meets Ulysses and Diomedes , in the form of twin flames, who are placed in this bolgia for using the Trojan Horse as a trap to besiege Troy and for deceiving Achilles to war. Ulysses tells an altered version of his last voyage: instead of returning to Ithaca, Ulysses and his crew shipwrecked in front of Mount Purgatory in

1584-562: The fraudulent thieves of their most inalienable properties: their bodies and identity. In this bolgia, the pilgrim also meets Vanni Fucci , a thief who lived in Pistoia . Vanni Fucci delivers a prophecy about Dante's fate in Florence before throwing an obscene gesture towards God and is punished by the centaur Cacus . The eighth bolgia is dedicated to the counselors of fraud—individuals who provided fraudulent advice or used fraud to bring about

1632-567: The future are punished here. Their heads have been twisted around to face backwards, and thus they are forced to walk backwards around the circumference of their circle for all eternity. They also are blinded by their tears; therefore they cannot walk in straight paths. The seers Tiresias and his daughter, Manto , reside in this bolgia. Barrators ( speculators , extortionists , blackmailers and unscrupulous businessmen: sinners who used their positions in life to gain personal wealth or other advantages for themselves) are punished by being thrown into

1680-560: The inner ledge where, after a brief look at the giants , the babbling Nimrod to the hostile Ephialtes and heavily chained Briareus , Virgil convinces the giant Antaeus to lower them down to the ninth circle's frozen lake, Cocytus . Thirteen demons known as the Malebranche ('Evil Claws'), guard the fifth bolgia of the Malebolge. Their leader is Malacoda ('evil tail'), while the others are Scarmiglione ('ruffle-haired'), Barbariccia ('curly beard'), Alichino (derived from Arlecchino ,

1728-486: The intrinsic bonds of trust and community that holds society together. In Inferno 25, the pilgrim witnesses a group of Florentine nobles violently latch onto each other, transmuting their bodies into a monstrous hybrid. These transformations reference tales from the Metamorphoses of Ovid , such Salmacis and her fusion with Hermaphroditus . Just as the thieves robbed others of their property, this punishment robs

1776-558: The other hand, said that rock music and opera are "both overblown, massive spectacles" that cover the same themes. Kiesewalter, who was originally not a fan of opera, did not think the two styles would mix well together, but his modernized operas with rock music surprised him with their popularity at the East Village Opera Company . The performance of these works on Broadway has also courted controversy; Anne Midgette of The New York Times called them musicals with "no more than

1824-461: The pilgrim encounters Guido da Montefeltro , who was placed in this bolgia for providing fraudulent advice that lead in exchange for a promise of salvation from Pope Boniface VIII . He first asks the pilgrim about the current state of affairs in Florence before narrating what led to his downfall and eventual placement in Hell. Sinners who, in life, promoted scandals, schism , and discord are punished here; particularly those who caused schism within

1872-579: The rock opera sub-genre". Neil Strauss of The New York Times wrote that S.F. Sorrow (1968) by the Pretty Things is "generally acknowledged as the first rock opera". Scott Mervis of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote that the Who 's 1969 record Tommy was the first album to be billed as a rock opera. The album tells the story of Tommy Walker, a "deaf, dumb and blind kid." Tommy displays

1920-522: The song lyrics is a common storytelling device. The success of the rock opera genre has inspired similar works in other musical styles, such as rap opera . A number of rock artists became interested in the idea of creating a rock opera in the 1960s. In an early use of the term, the July 4, 1966, edition of RPM Magazine (published in Toronto) reported that " Bruce Cockburn and Mr [William] Hawkins are working on

1968-531: The tail of a scorpion, who flies them down through the yawning chasm that separates the eighth circle from the seventh circle, where the violent are punished. Dante and Virgil plan on crossing Malebolge by way of the system of bridges, but find their path disturbed by many broken ledges and collapsed bridges that were destroyed during the Harrowing of Hell . They must then cross some of the bolgias on foot and even rely on demons to guide them. Eventually, they make it to

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2016-418: The tale of a nerdy Gwar fan ("The Ultimate Bohab") who became victim of the band's antics yet remained loyal until the very end, committing suicide just to follow Gwar to Hell. After all of these battles and obstacles, the band makes it to the palace of Satan himself ("The One That Will Not Be Named"), first asking him to open the door, but after getting no answer, smashing through it and calling him out. It

2064-486: The titular character's experiences with life and his relationship with his family. Although the band's guitarist Pete Townshend denied taking any influence from S.F. Sorrow , critics have compared Tommy to it. The Tommy album developed into other media, including a Seattle Opera production in 1971, an orchestral version by Lou Reizner in 1972, a film in 1975, and a Broadway musical in 1992. The original album has sold 20 million copies and has been inducted into

2112-561: The way. Balsac the Jaws of Death tries using the Hell for Dummies manual to find their way, while Jitler uses Google to find directions. Eventually, they make their way to Hell ("Go to Hell!") but find a very long line at the gates, along with a pig -like demonic police officer beating up people with a club. As explained in the lyrics of "I Love the Pigs", this demon used to be a corrupt policeman while he

2160-522: The worlds of high art and low art mix. In Russian music, the term zong-opera (Зонг-опера) is sometimes used, since the first Soviet-Russian rock-opera Orpheus and Eurydice was described with this term, though the term "rock-opera" was already known in the Soviet rock music circles. According to Fleming, rock operas are more akin to a cantata or suite , because they are not usually acted out. Similarly, Andrew Clements of The Guardian called Tommy

2208-513: Was alive, involving himself in drug deals until the last one went wrong and he was shot (despite this, the cause of death is said to be suicide by the authorities). Gwar murder and mutilate the demonic cop and make their way through the gates of Hell, facing the Tormentor (in the eponymous song), whom they also promptly defeat. Gwar next come across the Eight Lock , a prison within Hell keeping some of

2256-505: Was conducted by the band after the album's release and bassist Roger Waters reincarnated the tour twice; once in Berlin in 1990 to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall and again around the world from 2010-2013 , a series of shows that became the highest-grossing tour by a solo musician. In 1999, progressive metal band Dream Theater released their album Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from

2304-514: Was demo'd and recorded in Smoot's personal recording studio (christened SlavePit Studios) with the exception of Dave Brockie's vocals, which were done in Vancouver at Devin Townsend's studio. The album is available as a regular CD or in a limited digipack format, which also includes a bonus DVD with various extras on it plus expanded artwork and a poster. The DVD features behind-the-scenes clips featuring

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