Lordi: The Arockalypse

Well lordy, lordy - here comes Lordi!

(Someone had to make that corny quip!)

For our European readers, these guys are well known - so let's take a few seconds to acquaint everyone else with the recent events that brought Lordi into the limelight:

There's an annual, high-profile, week-long music contest called Eurovision - in which each European Broadcasting Union country is represented by just one act, singing a 3-minute song played on live TV. The competition has been running for 50 years, and the entries can be pop, rock, rap, folk, traditional ... whatever each country chooses. Metal and hard rock are rarely represented and previous winners include Vicky Leandros, the Brotherhood Of Man, Bucks Fizz, and Johnny Logan. A pretty innocent lot, often with leanings toward cheesy, commercial schlock. In 2006, however, Finland was represented by Lordi - whose band members wear weird zombie-like costumes and market themselves as a heavy, death-oriented metal act. This spawned headlines like "Finland Squirms as Its Latest Export Steps Into Spotlight" - and Finnish religious leaders warned that Lordi would inspire Satanic worship and begged Finland's president Tarja Halonen to veto the band and nominate a traditional Finnish folk singer instead. And as you can guess, Lordi won the competition - which raised a huge stink in some quarters but gave the band's profile a huge boost across all of Europe.

Now the End Records has brought Lordi's music to the USA - so it was with great curiosity that we spun the record for the first time.

Our impression? Despite all the controversy - Lordi probably deserved that Eurovision award.

Think of a modern-day Kiss. As we know, Kiss has a legion of secret admirers and is a sort of guilty pleasure for many progressive and metal fans. For the open minded, Lordi will fill a similar role. Their costumes and attitude are purely an act designed to draw attention, and to bridge the gap between Europe's huge black metal fanbase and those who prefer a more approachable, upbeat form of hard-edged rock. The music is not as heavy as the band's image suggests - it's supposed to sound coarse and metallic, but it's actually a very polished sound. There are big multi-part vocal harmonies, crunchy, approachable guitar riffs, anthemic choruses, and a generally positive vibe despite those pretenses at the death and destruction genre. And there are no death-metal-styled cookie monsters. You might go so far as to call this power metal - but really, it's hard-rock with metallic pretenses. Look at the list of guest artists to see the style of music you can expect - and note the members of Twisted Sister and Kiss.

Ignore the posturing, those costumes, and the destructive attitude. The Arockalypse is approachable, very well written, music that will have a broad appeal well beyond the normal metal and progressive genres.

 

Track Listing:
1. SCG3 Special Report
2. Bringing Back The Balls To The Rock
3. The Deadite Girls Gone Wild
4. The Kids Who Wanna Play With The Dead
5. It Snows In Hell
6. Who's Your Daddy
7. Hardrock Hallelujah
8. They Only Come Out At Night
9. Chainsaw Buffet
10.Good To Be Bad
11.The Night Of The Loving Dead
12.Supermonstars

Bonus Tracks:
1. Would You Love A Monsterman?
2. Mr. Killjoy
3. EviLove

Added: February 6th 2007
Reviewer: Duncan Glenday
Score:
Related Link: The Band's Website
Hits: 3334
Language: english

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