 
What a career these guys have had, they hit the global popularity scale when they won the Eurovision song contest in 2006 which was an historic moment as to this day they are still the only hard rock act to ever win the competition. Their career has spanned over 2 decades (24 years to be precise), after enjoying worldwide success after the competition in my opinion their career only went downhill, their shows gradually came down in size and when I saw them a few years ago it was in an undersold smaller venue which shocked me. In my opinion these albums weren’t bad but just never lived up to the standard of its predecessors, very disappointing as I am very fond of the band, there may still be chance for a comeback so let’s see what’s on offer here.
Normally with a Lordi album the cheesy lyrics are the hook and the music is just brilliant accompaniment, the difference here is that in my opinion the lyrics just don’t cut it even remotely, I gave it more than one chance as well but it still failed to hit the mark. They’re so cliche which is nothing unusual but they feel so forced onto the song, none of which I’ve found to be catchy or pleasing to the ear drums, very non-Lordi-like. “Let’s Go Slaughter He-Man” is a prime example of what I mean that chorus line doesn’t doesn’t flow it feels squashed in, “Night the Monsters Died” is another one with the like “Its the morning after the night, the night the monsters died” just seems very uninspired and not particularly well thought out. However it’s not all terrible I mean I quite enjoyed “Sick Flick” and “None For All” which are frankly in my opinion the only 2 that stick to the award winning formula and feel natural I almost felt the same with ”Demonarchy” but that was just really heavy and high octane but the lyrics didn’t really keep my attention and with this kind of music an infectious chorus line is damn near essential.
There isn’t much more to say on this record to be honest it just seems like they’re running out of ideas and trying to force things together that just don’t seem to fit. Very upsetting for me just very glad I can still listen to past albums with much fondness. I mean I gather what they were going for here was theatrical vs aggressive which would be key in the name and the fact that there is a split even amount of both types of song on the album, which in theory is a very good idea one that may have even prevailed as one of there best if some of the quality was improved but the fact of the matter is that only 5 songs out of 14 got a good rating on my iTunes, that just isn’t enough to deem this as a positive release in my book their lucky that I love “And The Zombie Says”, “None for One”, “Sick Flick” and “The Unholy Gathering” so much that it bumped their rating up.
2.5/5
Review by James Webb
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