Lordi – Screem Writers Guild

Label: Atomic Fire Records    Release Date: 31.03.2023

How are the monsters of Lordi just managing to do this? First, they release an album package containing 7, yes 7 Records in 2021, and now, not even two years later, they release another new record? The Finnish air must be very inspiring these days. Maybe one reason is their recent line-up change and the guitarist had new ideas for songs? But its stunning how clearly one can hear that there’s a new monster on guitar, and not Amen anymore. Do I like it? I don’t know… Could it be that the new monster Kone is from Sweden? The way he plays is so not-Finnish. 😊 Who knows, Who Knows.

The songs on the new record are like always in the well-known Lordi style. Screem Writers Guild tells the story of the Hollywood movie screen monsters of the 1920-50s era. Which is obvious seeing the new Lordi costumes. But….those costumes don’t really convince me, especially Hella and Mana look a bit like ordinary wholesale costumes for a Halloween party. Not as high class as we usually get from Mr.Lordi. But then again, it is very hard to come up with new ideas for costumes after such a long time.

Back to the album, yes, also music-wise it is hard to discover something new within Lordi. Which does not mean that the music is bad. But there is not much of a surprise. Not that the songs are repetitive, but they don’t really differ from the previous output. A superhit is missing somehow. But there is one song where I have to say: “What? Is that Lordi?” and that’s “The Bride”, a hardcore ballad feat. Mr. Lordi singing softly and clean. Chapeau – this song is really a surprise and totally great. There are great Lordi songs again, such as “The Thing in the Cage” or “Heavengeance”, which reminds me of on a old movie theme song. A bit creepy is the “End Credits”, a personal piece of Mr. Lordi, which was written for his own funeral. Such things let me worry about him, because we all hope that our monsterman will still stay with us for a long, long time. This song tells the story of Mr. Lordi’s life, just like the band biography “Lordiary”, but within 5 minutes. All in all, there is one great surprise on the album – the ballad. Otherwise you can look forward to typical Lordi songs with a totally different guitar sound compared to the past years. Thank you, Mr, Lordi, and please stay with us for a few more years, we like you and your Monster show.