Lordi has never been a band to shy away from trying something different, from their Hollywood studio-level outfits and makeup to their crowning achievement of taking cheesy shock rock to the Eurovision Song Contest and winning the competition for their native Finland.
The experimental nature of the project hasn’t ceased over the years and on January 31st Lordi will release their new studio album Killection – A Fictional Compilation Album via AFM records. The tagline catches attention and is self-explanatory. On Killection, Lordi are both asking and answering the question, What if the band had been making music since the ’70s?
Each and every song on Killection sound entirely different from each other and this is by design. The idea here is for the track list of fifteen (which includes a small number of skits from the band’s fictional radio station SCG) is meant to be a collection of hits from the ’70s, ’80s, and 90’s fictional back catalogue (seemingly recorded under the name Monster Squad). Ever the perfectionists, Lordi used authentic studios and recording equipment, layering in tropes of the ages to capture the defining sounds they wanted in order to make the release as believable as possible.
Killection is an ambitious project, to say the least, and the justification comes from Mr Lordi himself when asked during a promo for the album he explained that he has such a wealth of material written but most of it doesn’t fit with an album at the time of writing. In an attempt to turn the traditional way of thinking on its head the band decided to throw together a compilation using material from their archive and building on it to create the fictional greatest hits album.
It’s easy to identify which songs are supposed to be from which era, attributed to how well the sound and recording has been completed and the songs arranged. With an extensive real-life back catalogue, it’s enjoyable to listen to hear a band that could have easily faded away after their fling with mainstream success, try something so radically different. One thing the album confirms is that Lordi would have given Kiss a run for money back in their golden age.
This is a wholly unique album and one incredibly fun listen. Be sure to give it a listen when it releases at the end of January.
