By Jason Wellwood
Laughing out loud at the lyrics of a song is generally not a good sign when you’re listening to an album for the first time. If it’s Lordi though, not only is it okay, it’s kind of expected. Mr. Lordi and his costumed crew sound a lot more refreshed and ready for blood than they did on 2008’s Deadache. Perhaps the popularity of The Arockalypse had sated their bloodlust? In any case, the band has delivered an album ripe with hard rock hooks and b-horror movie lyrics. Lead off/title track ‘Babez For Breakfast’ is definitely un-p.c. but they still don’t move in to Gwar territory with the lyrics, keeping it okay for the under 18 set. While Lordi may be serious about their music and about making horror movie inspired songs, I don’t think anyone listening would take the lyrics to ‘Granny’s Gone Crazy’ too seriously. Though a song about a little old lady taking revenge for being stuck in a nursing home could have been created from the pages of any newspaper, I suppose. Babez for Breakfast does lose a little bit of steam as it goes along though – the first 4 songs ‘Babez for Breakfast’, ‘This Is Heavy Metal’, ‘Rock Police’ and ‘Discoevil’ are pound your fist, stomp your feet and shake your rump (I mean, the song does have the word ‘disco’ in it!) rockers and are easily better than any of the tracks on Deadache.
Getting into the middle of the record, the train slows down and wobbles a bit on the tracks. ‘Call off the Wedding’ right through to ‘ZombieRawkMachine’ aren’t the greatest tracks that the band have ever done, but serve well to lead you back into what Lordi do well. ‘Midnite Lover’ is, lyrically, not the most inspired track but the stomp and shake of the earlier songs returns in earnest and then hands you over to ‘Give Your Life For Rock and Roll’ which has nods to all of those hard rockers and metal heads who have passed on (Eric Carr, Wendy O. Williams, Randy Rhoads, Dimebag and more are referenced). Maybe not the biggest rocker on the album but the sentiment is an odd twist for Lordi and a lot of fun to try and figure out who is who.
All in all, a pretty solid effort for Lordi and would have made a much better follow up to the Arockalypse.
7.5/10
(The End Records)
