The Masterbeast from the Moon (1981)

Tracklist:

1. SCG Minus 5: Transmission Request
2. Moonbeast
3. Celestial Serpents
4. Hurricane of the Slain
5. Spear of the Romans
6. Bells of the Netherworld
7. Transmission Reply
8. Church of Succubus
9. Soliloquy
10. Robots Alive!
11. Yoh-Haee-Von
12. Transmission on Repeat

‘The Masterbeast from the Moon’ is probably the most ambitious and complex album in the series, harking back to the heydays of concept/prog rock back in the early 80s, inspired by legendary bands like Rush and Pink Floyd. Overall, compared to the other releases, this album definitely sounds like it has more of a deliberate chronology/story and isn’t just a collection of random tracks. There is definitely also more room for atmospheric bits with symphonies and where certain instruments get to shine more, making it really feels that track by track a bigger world gets created in which you get taken on a magical trip.

After the typical SCG intro, ‘Moonbeast‘ immediately sets the tone nicely with those earlier mentioned symphonies and some organ sounding keyboards, sucking you into the fantasy world of this concept album. And just like the albums of the bands who inspired this entry, the whole album ebbs and flows with more rock centered tracks and less heavy, emotional tracks that make it feel like we’re listening to a theater or musical production. Take ‘Hurricane of the Slain‘, featuring only piano, Mr. Lordi‘s vocals and some choir action that really brings across the part of the story we’re in at that point. And with ‘Church of Succubus‘ we get what is probably one of the longest tracks in the career of Lordi, a progressive masterpiece that would hold up strong among many of its supposed period classics of other proggy bands.

This is probably the least approachable album of the lot and most likely we won’t ever hear songs from it live, but it’s definitely really cool and interesting to see some of the musical prowess of Lordi bubble to the surface without the classic wordplay and silly horror/monster inspired tracks. A more grounded and I guess almost classy Lordi, I’d dare to say.