Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The last of the digital downloads from the superbly entertaining box set Lordiversity by the masters of theatrical mayhem, Lordi, may be upon the fan and the curious public, but that doesn’t mean that the enjoyment is over, for in The Masterbeast From The Moon, what comes across is a sense of lasting revisit, the understanding that through the absolute vision that has gone into making this series of albums available in one go, the listener will return, will come back to each and every piece of recording because it is a performance of will, a creature that straddles the enigmatic and the preposterously brilliant.

In reality such an herculean effort should have been dismissed, after the great, the giants of rock have limited themselves to perhaps two albums in a year for a reason, the mental exhaustion, the punishment on the psyche and the ego is to be avoided unless you want to befriend burnout, or in one notable case from a band that was at the top of their game and then decided to release three albums across three months, a dispiriting regret which showed absolutely in their music, and which took them far too long to recover.

Lordi though have not only achieved the seemingly impossible, the band released the seven album extravaganza with confidence, with buoyancy, gravitas, and outrageous theatrical cool, and as The Masterbeast From The Moon plays out with tracks such as Celestial Serpents, Spear Of The Romans, Church Of Succubus, Robots Alive! and Moonbeast showing the dramatic flair and resilience of spirit that encapsulates the sense of desire to go higher, to push the boundary of excess that one could only expect from a rock group that crashed the pop idolatry of Eurovision and won.

The reality of the album and the boxset is that Lordi have achieved with honour, and in the finale of the digital releases, the beast looks down upon the battlefield and roars with delight, with satisfaction, and whilst the possibility of touring can still be seen on the horizon, the whittling down of songs to fit on the arena stage is one that might cause concern, but then it is a tremendous problem to have.

Enigmatic, energetic, assured, The Masterbeast From The Moon is a heavenly encounter, one that the rock monster in us all will appreciate fully. 

Ian D. Hall