LORDI – Recordead Live – Sextourcism in Z7

It’s singularly difficult to resist beginning this review without writing “Oh Lordy it’s Lordi – a sentiment that will not be lost on anyone who remembers their breakthrough performance at the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest.

And now they’re back, sporting the usual Gaston Leroux inspired collection of horror masks and a live album that brings together some of their most feted tunes.

This collection was recorded in Prattein, Switzerland during their tastefully-titled Sextourcism dates (the tour names the band rejected must have been mind-boggling) and bar some stage chatter, it’s a warts and all performance of the evening’s entertainment.

So how does it fare? Well, those people not particularly invested in this kind of pseudo-gothic monster metal will still find something to enjoy in the clarity and balance of the recording. Songs like “Blood Red Sandman” and “She’s A Demon” (yes, really) sound thunderous without losing their definition, and even the symphonic elements work well in the mix. This is not the awkward “fish with feathers” approach of bands of yore (yes Metallica, Deep Purple et al. this is directed at your dusty back catalogue); the different elements are woven together well and manage to rise above the buckets of comedy gloss.

Particular highlights include the synth brass powered “Rock Police” (where were they when Survivor released their best of?) and the Faustian payback at heart of “The Riff,” as entertaining a tribute to the enduring power of rock ‘n’ roll (“The grim reaper played guitar/his bony fingers cold and stiff”) since Saxon gave us “Live to Rock” a few years back.

Proceedings are rounded off with the marvellously silly “Hard Rock Hallelujah,” a song that asks listeners to bare their souls in time for “The Arockalypse.”

It would be fair to say that this album benefits from its distant connection to Alice Cooper and Kiss by way of Mercyful Fate and anyone else whose ever used the imagery of the graveyard to sell a record. That said, somehow its journey beyond parody seems to work in the manner of a garish t-shirt that’s spent years out of fashion but has a fighting chance of acceptance under the dubious banner of irony. However, to see it purely in those terms would be to deny the genuine craft and sense of fun that’s on display here.

Not just for the initiated!