For those barely paying attention to the music business as a whole, Lordi won the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest, which was "shocking" since said contest tends to favour Céline Dion, ABBA, Katrina and the Waves and other such monsters of rock. Lordi have parlayed that win into a North American domestic release for The Arockalypse and an Ozzfest stint, since novelty is invariably exploited for money grabs.

"What the fuck does this have to do with anything?," you ask. Well, it’s quite obvious that The End - ostensibly a high-quality metal label above indulging its inner Roadrunner - wanted to jump aboard the Lordi gravy train. Some Europeans seem to be gay for this band and North America is supposed to follow suit. Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider and KISS‘ Bruce Kulick have cameos on this disc for those all-important crossover appearances. Lordi are going to be compared to GWAR and… well, just GWAR as if that band invented the concept of costuming. This of course leads to pissing matches about which gimmick band is better. I have a more important question: why do people give a shit either way? Regardless of whether The Arockalypse is good or not, the selling point with Lordi is their fucking costume gimmick as it was with GWAR, Green Jellÿ and other quasi-comedic metal bands of this nature. It’s all about the spectacle, dammit! Why should something like the quality of music matter? That’s for retards and the elderly!

As for the music, people have taken to referring to Lordi songs as "1980s-style big, dumb, loud rock songs." Do people actually know what the hell they’re talking about when they say something that stupid? Lordi plays something that comes across as late-1990s KISS with tongue-in-cheek references to horror films - lead singer Tomi Putaansuu is a special effects man and founded the Finnish KISS fan club, so spot the influences - and this is supposed to be impressive? Uh, no, this is post-ironic radio-friendly hard rock not unlike The Darkness. That’s all The Arockalypse is and it isn’t that good to begin with. Do I hear classic AC/DC, King Diamond, Ozzy Osbourne, Motörhead, Iron Maiden, Anthrax, Slayer, Black Sabbath or Judas Priest in The Arockalypse? No, but then people hearing bands like that in Lordi are trepanning themselves to see what the effects of various drill bits on one’s brain and skull are. Lordi make people smell burnt toast!

Why am I reviewing this, then? Well, most of the reviews I’ve read of The Arockalypse are unrelentingly positive and the negative comments fall into the category of "UH, LORDI SUCKS, HUH HUH, THEY’RE LIKE A RIPOFF OF GWAR. GWAR RULES" followed by five minutes of guttural laughing, repeating GWAR’s name and hitting frogs with a baseball bat. I’ve heard worse bands than Lordi given needless hype - Fozzy comes to mind, as does 3 Inches of Blood. That’s not to say that I like Lordi, since they’re pointlessly generic. There’s album reissues if I want to live false nostalgia. Metal with humourous overtones is better served by Blöödhag, Birdflesh or Fetus Eaters. Regardless of whether Lordi suck or not, they’ve managed to turn a mediocre band with "interesting" selling points into something financially lucrative and it’s a scam that has existed since at least before Green Jellÿ and Manowar. People never fucking learn.

Written By: The Ultimate Mark