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Needless to say, I have very little time to waste giving lectures on undue admiration for bands undeserving – Lordi have a park named after them for fuck's sake – so I'll apologise now for a short review; there are, after all, only so many ways to say this sucks big ones.

The fact that I have female friends whose musical repertoire stems from Deftones to Elvis who happen to eulogise Mr. Lordi's hideous countenance makes my brain so enraged it tries to squirm out through my ears, preventing me from hearing remarks of similar worthlessness. They wouldn't touch Twilightning with a barge pole, why would they bother with this bunch of Finnish misfits? Because they wear masks. Whoop-de-fucking-do. Oh and they sing about partying monsters. I don't know about you, but I'm convinced. If the general public are that easily entertained, no wonder they won the bloody Eurovision song contest. Even the track in question, the ubiquitous "Hard Rock Hallelujah", displayed on their latest effort "The Arockalypse", is as one dimensional as a 2X4.

For the most part, "The Arockalypse" sets up camp in familiar territory, almost afraid to climb out of the tent and go for a wander. There are plenty of massive, fist in the air choruses, crystalline synth work and pounding, 80s style metal anthems in the mould of Skid Row, Motley Crüe and Poison. But that's it, aside from the rather alleviating Maiden feel to a lot of the middle sections, which at least makes the instrumentation slightly less annoying than the piss-poor grunty vocals.

If you loved their previous outings, tracks like "The Night of the Loving Dead", "The Chainsaw Buffet", "They Only Come out at Night" and "Bringing Back the Balls to Rock" will sate your bloodthirsty appetite. The rest of you with taste, avoid like a sex offender.