Lordi - The Arockalypse Review
Posted by Tollah on 03.24.2006
Who's Your Daddy? Monster metal that's not for the faint of heart (or humour).
Readers of my regular column, "Wake Up, Time To Rock", will probably be reasonably familiar with Lordi. In fact, I gave their 2002 album Get Heavy one of my incredibly highly regarded "T-Reccomendation of the Week"s. Admittedly I haven't heard their second album, Monsterican Dream, so I'm going into this one with high expectations since the debut was so awesome.
The only way to genrefy Lordi is "Monster Metal". They sing hard rock songs.. about monsters. Take the glam and crazy costumes of Kiss and Twisted Sister, tweek it up a notch, throw in some of Bon Jovi's skill at crafting a singalong chorus and make them as heavy Judas Priest. You've got something resembling the insane rock shenanigans of Finnish band Lordi.
The album starts off with a track called "SCG3 Special Report", some fake news report about monsters invading earth. If you don't like the sound of that, stop reading this column right now. I think it's bloody great. There's a nice touch where the news channel's theme music is a take on Get Heavy track "Devil Is A Loser".
The rocking out starts with the next track, "The Deadite Girls Gone Wild", which launches into an unusually sexed-up riff before bringing us a tune about hot zombies. "She's got a body to die for/Touch it and you will". Nice way to kick things off, but things get better. "The Kids Who Wanna Play With The Dead" is typical Lordi. Then we get to "It Snows In Hell", which is one of Lordi's awesome power ballads. This song features former Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick, who does a stirling job.
Then comes the best track on the album. "Who's Your Daddy" is Lordi at their finest - blunt, brutal and damn hilarious lyrics, a riff that kills and a chorus that you'll find yourself singing as you walk down the road to the store to buy some tuna later on. "Who's your daddy, bitch, who's your daddy/Surrender and obey!" Classic stuff. The best bit is the bridge, but I won't spoil that. You really have to hear it for the full effect anyway.
The rest is typical Lordi monster magic. "They Only Come Out At Night" is a rocking duet between frontman Mr Lordi and U.D.O. "Chainsaw Buffet" is more morbid humour, "Good To Be Bad" has some very 80s sounding keyboards, "The Night of the Living Dead" is a rocker and closer "Supermonstars" is a killer anthem... literally.
9 tracks is kinda disappointing, especially since the longest one weighs in at a mere 4:07. If you don't include the non-musical first track the whole thing clocks just over half an hour, which is pretty short by today's standards.
The 411: Not quite as good as the debut "Get Heavy", but still damn a fun album to rock out to. "Who's Your Daddy" is one of the best hard rock tracks in recent years. A monsterous thumbs up.
