Children of Bodom - Blooddrunk

In the second half of the nineties, while Nu- Metal engulfed the epidermis of the metal world, a handful of bands emerged from the underground playing the music of their forefathers, but with a fresh approach and enough additions to be hailed as original artists themselves. At the head of this pack stood the Finnish Metal band Children of Bodom. Slowly but, surely Bodom have builed their fan base expanding city-by-city, country-by-country. In 2008, the Alexi Laiho led band released their sixth studio album Blooddrunk, which was a shift back to the old Bodom style which the band had abandoned on their previous record Are You Dead Yet?

Blooddrunk doesn’t contain anything terribly exciting or innovative to offer, for it is at best another good classic Bodom record. This leads one to thing again about the point that is it really fair and necessary to expect something groundbreaking and wondrous each and every time from a band. If one really goes deep into it, how can any band develop their signature sound if they were to be playing something totally unlike their previous work with every release of theirs?

One obvious contrast though would be the change in the vocal style adopted by Alexi Laiho. Early on his career, the major criticism the band would be subjected to time and again would be in regards to the vocal department. For a considerably long time Alexi made it through with his passable vocals, without concentrating on them too much. The early works by the band are filled by his shrieks, and wherever he would actually sing they would sound quite atrocious. But, Blooddrunk sees Alexi adopt more singing into his vocals, which have definitely been sharpened around the corners and sound much better than on the band’s previous works.

When Laiho and co. first burst onto the scene they took every one by storm, simply because they connected so many different forms of metal into their music which fitted like a glove. So many years on, the band still manages to pull of their trickery with great execution. There is a huge amount of thrash metal influence that can be felt on the rhythm sections on the track, the vocals would obviously hint towards a death metal framework, while the melody created by the keyboards add their own power metal affect. ‘One Day You Will Cry’ and ‘Tie My Rope’, both summing up as the strongest tracks on the album carry an irresistible groovy vibe to them.

One point of negativity could be drawn from the similarity in the riffs on some of the songs, which seem like minor variations of one large chalked out set of riffs rather than new riffs being used for each song. But, as for the lead work there is very little that can be said that hasn’t already been said. Laiho is just brilliant with his compositions; in particular his duel runs with keyboardist Janne Wirman add a thunderous whirlpool to the tracks they are featured on.

Blooddrunk should get the nod of Bodom fans around the world, and is one album any metal nut shouldn’t refrain from drenching his hands into.