Could You Understand, The Beauty Of The Beast

I previously mentioned that Lordi were the Eurovision champs from a few years ago, but what I meant was last year 2006. Hmmm, sorry. All the same, the point here is Lordi provided Finland's first Eurovision win in 40 years of participation. On another note, Lordi not only went into the contest with a far more heavier sound than the usual fair, but also dressed as Monsters. This caused much controversy as many people called them satanists, but that seems absurd since Mr. Lordi clearly stated on their first album that the ~Devil is a Loser and the Devil is his bitch~ so there nay-sayers.

Despite this controversy Lordi went on to out-perform and win The Eurovision song Contest in 2006 with the strong Kiss-influenced rock number "Hard Rock Hallelujah" and set a new Guinness world record for largest crowd sing a long when approx. 80,000 fans sang a long at their Helsinki victory concert.

"The Arockalypse" is Lordi's third full length album and the only one I own (at present, though I am trying to pick up their earlier work now). Now if it wasn't for Anonymous Jones' inquiry of me if I had heard of the band, then I wouldn't be writing about them today. She peaked my curiosity and I sought out their videos on YouTube and was both impressed and giggly of their performances. The one thing for sure was, their songs stuck in my head. I waffled about their albums for months before breaking down and buying one. The delay, however, allowed me to purchase the very reasonably priced special edition version of "The Arockalypse" with bonus songs and DVD.

First off, the packaging is quite nice and worth the money and the fact the album is chocked full of hooky hard rock anthems is nice as well. The album begins with a mock radio show (featuring special guest Dee Snider) that gets interrupted by an special news report on Monster attacks occurring all over the globe. Destruction ensues and before long we get into the album. The track is fun and fitting to the album, but at over 3 minutes it is skipable for further listenings. Thank goodness it is its own track.

With machine gun drums and deathy vocal effects we get hit by the "Bringing Back The Balls To Rock" onslaught that kick starts the album. The song is rockin' and references several lines from well known rock songs. From here we are treated to thick and heavy hard rock anthems and riffs. The chorus's are catchy with keyboard melodies and sing along lyrics. "The Deadite Girls Gone Wild" and "The Kids Who Want To Play With The Dead" take their rock hooks and toss us into the ballad-like "It Snows In Hell" featuring Bruce Kulick from Kiss. The songs piano melodies are sweet and the song is one of the catchiest tracks here.

The rhythmic "Who's Your Daddy?" takes us into the contest winning "Hard Rock Hallelujah". The song is a straight up anthem with a chorus that's as catchy as one might expect being brought by thine Rock N Roll angels.

"They Only Come Out At Night" features Accept's Udo Dirkschneider and continues the wailing hard rock stylings and "Chainsaw Buffet" highlights the talents of Jay Jay French with uber melody and funny lyrics and one of the more memorable songs.

"Good To Be Bad" is a keyboard heavy rock song and "Night Of The Loving Dead" has a nice opening riff and strategic keys that takes us to the album closer. "Supermonsters (The Anthem Of The Phantoms)" crushes us with ballsy, thick guitars and a little darker sound, but no less catchy.

The bonus tracks continue with Lordi's brand of melodic hard rock on "Mr. Killjoy" and "Evilove". Fairly standard fair, though. They also do an updated version of "Would You Love A Monsterman" originally on their 2002 album "Get Heavy". This song is ridiculously catchy with the chorus staying with you for days. It's an upbeat rock driven tune.

Lordi may not be changing the face of rock as most of their songs are fairly standard, albeit well done and with much conviction. What they are doing is literally bringing stadium rock alive again. Like what Manowar does for heavy metal, Lordi is doing for anthemic melodic hard rock. The music is well done and performed and super catchy and Mr. Lordi's voice may not be outstanding, but is well suited and diverse enough to avoid monotony.

What I truly appreciate from Lordi is their efforts at preserving the stadium style live performances with huge sound, rocking sing along songs and a theatrical show with their thematic monster look and lots of pyro. Something I ,at least, haven't seen since early Kiss shows and to a lesser extent, but commendable all the same, Trans-Siberian Orchestra. These are the kind of shows I want to pay money to see.

Justin can bring all the sexy back he wants, but Lordi is bringing back the balls to Rock!