Eight years on from their Eurovision Song Contest triumph, Lordi are on their seventh album, Scare Force One (Warners) and you’d think the joke would be stretching thinner than the invisible point of Death’s scythe by now. Yet, more than 20 years after Mr Lordi first assembled a troupe of monsters to try and take over the world, no one seems to have told the band.

And a bloody good job that is, too, because Scare Force One is a surprisingly good album. Not surprisingly good as in “ah, it’s a bit shit, but, y’know…”, but surprisingly good, as in it is packed with Alice Cooper meets King Diamond anthems, and spurts fun, stomping hard rocking metal Glasgow-kissed by a splatter of Twisted Sister.

Lordi, for those who, probably quite rightly, pay little or no attention to the Eurovision Song Contest announced themselves by decimating the competition and winning it with their ‘Hard Rock Hallelujah’s and rubber-monster outfits (I have to confess to loving Eurovision – there’s something about a plethora of cheesy EuroPop mixed with a dross of wannabe Nightwish ballads interspersed by patronising stereotypes, national folk outfits and sorely dated ditties) in 2006 with the biggest ever points total and largest winning margin. They are, fact fiends, still the only Rock band to win the contest.

Mr Lordi, with gravelled tones instantly recognisable and reminiscent of Taneli Jarva in his Sentenced days, knows how to write a catchy, hooky pop-metal song, with choruses that dig their claws into your brain and, like Critters, gnaw their way through the cerebral cortex and implant their earworming gnashers into your memory sacks.

With uptempo zombie stomps deep down the order, with only ‘The United Rocking Dead’ taking it’s mammoth foot off the pedal of quality, Scare Force One is littered with bangers that prove Lordi are much more than just a PG-13 version of GWAR, with the riotous ‘Hell Sent In The Clowns and more-infectious-than-ebola ‘She’s A Demon’ vying with ‘House of Ghosts’, a track which could easily have Lordi-ed it up (sorry) on Alice’s Trash (Epic), as pick of a deadly bunch.

Lorks a-Lordi, I can’t believe how enjoyable this is!

7.5/10

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STEVE TOVEY