Church of the Truly Warped

Do you want to know a secret? Well, according to the booklet accompanying the Captain Oi reissue of GBH's seventh album, the band relaxed between recording sessions by mowing the lawn, watching tennis and playing ball with a dog named Bess — shockingly staid pursuits that probably don't fit the GBH image in the slightest. Clearly, they were saving their energy for the music. While Church of the Truly Warped certainly continues on the demented hardcore course of its predecessors, it's also the most melodic of the band's speed metal trilogy (A Fridge Too Far and From Here to Reality preceded it) and, in many ways, it's the most instantly enjoyable of them all. As with the From Here to Reality reissue, the bonus tracks here are drawn from the album's demo sessions — three numbers, "Pure Greed," "Candy Man" and "Not Enough Hate" are the reprises — and, in all honesty, there's very little difference between these versions and the finished recordings. But some albums really don't need to be appended with a succession of new jewels, and Church of the Truly Warped, Rovi