I Worship Chaos

While Children of Bodom are used to personnel shakeups, the departure of longtime guitarist Roope Latvala before the recording of I Worship Chaos posed a challenge. A member since 2003, he was an integral part of the band's sound. This left vocalist/guitarist Alexi Laiho handling all six-string chores alone for the first time, making this COB's debut as a quartet. It was recorded in a converted warehouse rather than a conventional recording studio, and delivers a more spacious sound. Laiho and bassist Henkka Seppälä tuned half a step lower for each song, resulting in a much darker, heavier attack. Opener "I Hurt" is classic COB with a knotty, technical death metal riff, labyrinthine scalar flights, and piercing melodic interludes…

Finland's melodic death superstars CHILDREN OF BODOM are proud to the announce the release of their tenth album, »Hexed«, on March 8, 2019 via Nuclear Blast Records.

One of the most refreshing things about Finnish metallers Children of Bodom is that they never cease to provoke their fans by doing exactly what they want to do when they want to do it. They take great pleasure in thwarting expectations at every turn. Ironically, this makes their (many) hardcore fans even more devoted. Holiday at Lake Bodom: 15 Years of Wasted Youth, a CD/DVD compilation that ranges from their debut offering in 1997 straight on through to 2011, contains 20 tracks from virtually every period in their existence. It's sure to piss off almost everyone for what's been excluded, though no one can argue that what's here is essential, with the possible exception of the previously unissued cover version of Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl"…

Children Of Bodom were a revelation back in 2003 when they hit their creative and critical peak with Hate Crew Deathroll. Since then, the Finns have toyed about with their celebrated sound, but with mixed results, scaling back the chilly atmospherics and settling into a groove that’s often at odds with the sharp end of their blackened melodeath…

In 2019 Children of Bodom played their last concert in Helsinki called "A Chapter Called Children of Bodom" before the band disbanded. Alexi Laiho (lead guitar, lead vocals) and Daniel Freyberg (rhythm guitar) continued their collaboration as Bodom After Midnight in 2020. Laiho, who was one of the founding members of Children of Bodom, passed away on December 29, 2020.

Exumer was an early German thrash metal band with close ties to Angel Dust (their labelmates on the Desaster imprint) and a raw, vicious, unsophisticated style derived chiefly from influences like Venom, Exodus, and Slayer…

After finally running out their 13-year, seven-plus album deal with a poisonously indifferent Atlantic Records via 2005's workmanlike Octavarium, progressive metal standard bearers Dream Theater took advantage of their well earned free agent status to enjoy a heated courtship from several interested labels, before eventually settling on the artistically simpatico Roadrunner. But, ironically, Dream Theater's first album for the label that heavy metal built, 2007's Systematic Chaos, was relatively accessible by the group's standards, complementing every epic and complex composition with a comparatively concise and hooky song, thus leaving it to its 2009 successor, Black Clouds & Silver Linings, to really flex the band's progressive metal muscles to their maximum girth…