Well...you know what, you're actually not too far from the mark with that one! Although the identities of the members have not been publicly revealed by the members of the band (and I will not reveal the names that have been circulating the net: go look them up in your own time, if you're really curious!), it is claimed that the original line up of Lordi came together after a Kiss Army trip to Sweden and some claims indicate that the lead singer of Lordi was (and probably still is) the head of Kiss Army Finland. So, there's an undeniable influence from Kiss in the band's music. So you could sum up Lordi as a bunch of Kiss fans who also watch a lot of horror movies, if you really wanted to.
And...as much as I don't like Kiss much myself, I'm actually OK with that. Sure, most people will say that Lordi are only original if you've never heard of GWAR, but, even though it is my (unpaid) job to be a critic, I still have to point out that what Lordi and GWAR do for their image, to my knowledge, is actually a rather unique thing in this day and age: you don't get a lot of really theatrical bands doing stuff like this, so, if you ask me, there is room in this world for both Lordi and GWAR due to them being both rather unique.
...Well, assuming that GWAR can continue after the death of Dave Brockie.
Anyway, Lordi's overall history can be divided up into two periods: pre-Eurovision Song Contest and post-Eurovision Song Contest. Before their Eurovision performance, the band were just your typical hard rock band with three albums under their belt (November 2002's Get Heavy, April 2004's The Monsterican Dream and May 2006's The Arockalypse...which, incidentally enough, was released about a fortnight before the Eurovision finals!). These albums, by a lot of people, are generally considered to be decent, but nothing revolutionary and...well, for the most part, I agree with them. None of the albums are bad by any measure, but, if I'd been a decade older and reviewing the band before Eurovision, I'd have probably been inclined to say that the band weren't ever going to break through into the mainstream on the strength of their music alone.
And then Eurovision happened.
Post-Eurovision, Lordi's popularity went through the roof around the world. To many, this was the modern Kiss that the metal scene had been waiting for: the band who were going to be huge and urge in a new era of hard rock music.
Yet...neither of Lordi's first two albums after Eurovision had a huge impact. Don't get me wrong, they weren't badly received, but the general consensus is that they weren't as good as the band's first three albums. I can't attest how Babez For Breakfast sounds, but I feel Deadache was actually a slight step up from The Arockalypse. It had more songs which I return to compared to The Arockalypse, at the very least, which isn't necessarily a sign of quality (I have a surprisingly high tolerance for stuff that most people would call terrible), but is at least a sign to me that there was something about Deadache which I liked that wasn't present to my ears on The Arockalypse. Maybe it's just my fondness for stuff that sounds like it could have come out of the 80's...
Being honest, when I heard the single for To Beast Or Not To Beast, my thoughts were "Dear God, no!" I LOATHED "The Riff". In fact, it put me off the album so much that I didn't even bother to order it because I thought "This is just gonna be a waste of money". Granted, my financial situation was not great at the time either, so it's not like I was turning it down just because I hated it so much...
Yet here we are, over a year after this was released and with another Lordi album being recorded as we speak, about to review it. I must have been higher than a kite being flown on top of a zeppelin...right?
Well, let's find out!
First up, the cover art. One of the things that I will admit that is Lordi had prided themselves with having very cool artwork on their albums in the past...but this breaks that trend by seeming kind of dull. The problems boil down to two major things:
- The colour pallet is rather limited, mostly going for varying shades of the kind of colour you see when you soak paper in tea. While this works for doing old fashioned writing projects (protip for students reading this: if you want to make a document look like old parchment, soak teabags in water and dab them across the paper!), it doesn't really work here, as everything feels kind of muted and faintly blends into itself. If you were to glance at this casually without looking closely, this would make no real impression on your mind.
- The overall concept feels rather limited. While I will admit that the play upon Hamlet's famous speech is fairly clever, it doesn't really work properly as an eye catching cover because there's nothing really there to look at. This is more damning when you compare it to the band's previous cover arts, as it only stands out in how unimpressive it looks. It's not even one of those cover arts where you find more subtle stuff when you look closely and, as such, necessitates a close look to really be impressed by it: you pick up everything you need to upon first look.
Also, I like the new logo. Just wanted to point that out now.
Before I move on to the album properly, a minor complaint about the liner notes: the liner notes for the songs aren't in the right order when providing the lyrics to the songs. I suspect this is due to a last minute change, but I still have to ask why Amen has the lyrics for tracks 7 and 8 ("Happy New Fear" and "Schizo Doll") next to him when he's after Lordi in the liner notes, yet Hella has the lyrics for tracks 3 and 4 ("The Riff" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes") despite being the fourth person introduced in the liner notes. Everything else is fine, though, which is what leads me to suspect there was a last minute change that simply wasn't handled properly. I know it's a minor thing to get worked up about, but, if the liner notes are otherwise accurate (as they are, in this case), I cannot help pointing it out!
Anyway, that nitpick aside, let's move on to the music!
If there's one thing that "The Riff" did point towards that I was somewhat unsure about, it's that the band were going even heavier on this album then they had with Deadache (again, I can't attest how the band sounded on Babez For Breakfast). Which they did, but, luckily, not the extent that I was expecting: the only major change is that the band seem willing to embrace the more metal side of things, including a CRUSHING song in the form of "Something Wicked This Way Comes" that would have you wondering whether Lordi had been listening to Black Sabbath before writing this album. That isn't to say that the band suddenly sound like an extreme metal act, but it is fair to say that this album is less friendly to people who aren't interested in metal music that The Arockalypse and Deadache are. Personally, I actually like them upping the heaviness of their music on this album, as it reminds me a bit of the material I've heard from The Monsterican Dream, but I can understand why some people might be disappointed: heavier does not automatically mean better. That said, this heaviness doesn't sacrifice any of the recognisable things that Lordi bring to the table: you still have the instantly recognisable vocals of Mr. Lordi (the best way to describe them for people who haven't heard Lordi would be "Christian Bale's Batman with even more grit and singing like that"...although it's worth noting that Lordi pre-date the Nolan Batman films by several years, so this description isn't entirely accurate either!), the higher backing vocals that harken back to the 80's nicely (although they are used more sparingly here, mostly going for the lower ranged gang vocals that most Anthrax fans will find familiar), the keyboards that add a sense of dread to the proceedings nicely despite not really adding much musically and the lyrics which sound like they've been written by a bunch of killer monsters (appropriately enough...). That said, the band throw some new stuff into the mix which left me scratching my head on first listen: there are points when the band sound like they've taken influence from disco (although not in the music: it's mostly restricted to a few moments and the chorus of "Candy For The Cannibal") and some of the heaviness does appear to have sacrificed some of the band's ability to write catchy hooks: a lot of the hooks require a few listens to really catch you, which stands in noticeable contrast with some of the band's earlier material, which had you from the first listen. There also seems to be more of a focus on creating a horror atmosphere on this album compared to usual, which occasionally results in me wondering whether the band are trying too hard with the whole "We're monsters of rock" (terrible pun alert! TERRIBLE PUN ALERT!) thing. The ONLY song where I feel I cannot make this criticism is with the closing track on the album, "SCG6: Otus' Butcher's Clinic", and, even then, that's because I know the band put the track on the album in tribute to Otus (AKA Tonni Lillman, who passed away on the 13th of February 2012): if they'd put the track on the album while he still was alive, I would probably have had some stuff to say about it. In this circumstance, though, I feel it would best to simply let this song stand as a tribute to Otus without commenting on it. So yeah...free pass to that song out of respect to Otus' time in the band. The overall quality of this album is not bad, but, to me, it's no Deadache. It just feels like it's lacking a certain something to make it really great. I wouldn't say the band have lost their way with this album, because they genuinely haven't, but the album seems to be a case of the band not being sure they wanted to go for the heavier sound properly and, as such, they didn't go all out with it. To an extent, I can understand them not wanting to risk alienating fans, but it does mean things have a habit of feeling kind of awkward when they transition from stuff like "Something Wicked This Way Comes" to "I'm The Best". Guys, don't be afraid to go all out with the heaviness next time!
Moving to the lyrics...I will admit that Lordi have never been beacons of lyrical excellence, but some of the lyrics on this album just have me rolling my eyes. Now, I'll be fair, the band are Finnish, so it's understandable that they might not have the same grasp of what works well in English that most native English speakers do, but that still doesn't excuse stop some of the lyrics on this album from leaving me going "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!" Probably the finest example is "We're Not Bad For The Kids (We're Worse)", which has this for a chorus:
Make your mommy cryThe worst part? I don't think those are the worst lyrics in that song. That would be the pre-chorus:
Daddy blows his mind
Listen up and learn
We're not bad for the kids, we're worse
Make them take offence
Taint your innocence
The first time always hurts
We're not bad for the kids we're worse.
All you little children have gone out of your mindsI swear to God that I am not making those lyrics up! Again, I get there's a language barrier, so I can't really be too harsh, but how can anybody with even a vague understanding of English look at those lyrics and not find them to be badly written? So yeah...some pretty bad lyrics on this album. For the most part, though, Mr. Lordi can sing them with enough conviction that it's tough to really dislike them when you hear them. It's only when you actually look at them that your mind starts going "WHAT IS THIS CRAP?!"
Don't wanna read no history, let's practise some biology
The band's performances aren't going to surprise anyone familiar with the band's previous work, but, for the benefit of those not familiar with the band, I'll sum the band up: they're not the best musicians out there, but they're get the job done. About the only member who I would say has any distinctiveness is Mr. Lordi due to his relatively unique voice, but that's not to say the rest of the members are bad: they just don't stand out much when you compare them to other musicians out there. Really, that's the best way to put in: in their genre, they aren't especially unique, but that doesn't imply a lack of talent, merely that they do not do enough to stand out on a technical level above most of the other musicians in their genre. While I'm OK with this (at the end of the day, I just want to hear a good song, I don't particularly care if it's a technically demanding song or not!), I can understand a lot of people not being impressed with this.
Moving to the production...you know the drill if you've read this blog before now. Bass is too quiet for my liking and...wait, the production is not actually that loudly produced?
...Oh wait, my speakers must be down too low.
...Nope, they're the same level as usual. Let's check with something else...
...OK, that definitely sounded louder! But what...
Has...has someone actually been paying attention the loudness war complaints and done something about it?
...Damn. I'm not sure what to say now.
...OK, I guess I can say that this is a rare case of an album that sounds powerful without being ridiculously loud on the production front. This has the power needed for hard rock and metal, but the overall loudness of the album is actually surprisingly restrained! Seriously, the only thing that's really missing from the production to have me declaring this one of the best produced albums I've heard from 2013 is the ever present lack of bass (that must be rather weird to read...) that plagues modern metal albums. Seriously, though, on a production front, I think this album is just great! Complaint about the relative silence of the bass aside, I cannot draw any complaints about this album's production! Kudos to everyone who worked on the album apart from the mixer(s), I guess...and the mixers only don't get credit from me for the bass issue, I otherwise think they deserve a lot of praise!
So, final thoughts? Well, this is a far more enjoyable album than I expected it to be! It's hardly flawless, but, if you don't mind very commercial hard rock with shock rock themes and can cope with some horrible lyrics, this should be right up your alley! It's a very fun listen if you like this kind of thing and, for an album that I was expecting to hate from the single of it, it's hard to deny that there's some really good tracks on it. It's hardly reinventing the wheel (even if Lordi HAD been reinventing the wheel when their debut came out, the fact this is their sixth album means that what was once unique has become typical for the band), but hey, there's nothing wrong with doing stuff that's just fun! While I (and most critics) will want to see bands reinvent the wheel and will be disappointed when they don't, I know that there's nothing wrong with a band doing stuff that, while not original, is still enjoyable, which I think is one of the things Lordi excel at: they're the perfect combination of Kiss and Alice Cooper, and, so long as they keep doing that, I'm OK with that!
Final Rating: 6 Out Of 10
A good album which suffers from a lack of originality, some poor lyrics and some strange decisions in the songwriting, but gets through it all with enough of a sense of fun that it's hard to really dislike it. If you like commercial (if surprisingly heavy) hard rock with shock rock elements and an element of fun to it, this should be worth checking out. If you're opposed to anything which is not completely straight faced, this will not win you over. Lordi fans who haven't picked this up should do so, but, if you don't like Lordi, then they probably won't win you over with this one.
Personal Favourite Tracks: "Something Wicked This Way Comes", "I'm The Best", "Candy For The Cannibal" (although in a guilty pleasure kind of way!)
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