Lordi Lordi, what can you say about Lordi. Are these guys completey nuts or are they just a cheap rip-off of GWAR. Actually Lordi is neither of those things. Lordi is a hard rock maelstrom invading the states. These super beasts hail from Finland where it gets so cold in the winter that you have to climb into elaborate monster costumes just to stay warm.

Seriously though, Lordi is a new import courtesy of the kind folks over at The End Records, and the Arockalypse is what they are reigning down. After making it big in their homeland by winning the Eurovision music contest Lordi brought their act to the world with a summer long stretch with Ozzfest.

Some people can’t seem to get past Lordi’s outlandish monster get ups to really appreciate what they are doing. Lordi is filling this crazy big hole left by some of the original monsters of rock such as Alice Cooper and Ozzie. Their sound has more in common with these grand-daddies of hard rock and hair metal than they do with today’s doom and gloom generation of metal bands.

The cool thing about Lordi is that they have fully embraced this demonoid persona that they’ve created for themselves. They’ve gone so far as to insist on never being seen out of costume when representing themselves as Lordi. In keeping in this spirit, their music has a pretty strong theme throughout it as well. While they never tackle issues bigger than learning to love a ghoul and chain-saw massacres, it’s easy to get into them mostly because they are so outlandish. Lordi is over the top, everything they do is big. Their music is epic, stadium crushing anthems. Mr. Lordi’s vocals are varied with deep growls and crazy high pitched wailing reminiscent of Angus from AC/DC. Their videos are as elaborate as their costumes. They seem more like short movies than rock videos. Usually in better quality than the B-rated films they pay homage to.

I’d have to say that my favorite track on the Arockalypse is Hard Rock Hallelujah. It’s big bold and full of pipe organs and choir signers. Though my favorite Lordi track has got to be The Devil’s a Loser and He’s My Bitch, come on how bad-assed is a track like that.

So, the final verdict is this… If you’re a fan of good ol’ fashion 80’s hard rock or just really into cheesy Troma films than Lordi is for you.