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Children Of Bodom Bio
The band that darted to international fame with their debut, 1997’s Something Wild, has gone from being “this amazing band from Finland” to a household name in the metal scene. And that, of course, is obvious given the intensity, sheer quality of their material and the flawless execution.
Formed in 1993 and hailing from the city of Espoo, Finland, this young Finnish group took their name from one of the biggest murder mysteries in the history of their home town and Finnish crime: the murders at the Lake Bodom. After starting out as a trash-metal combo, the founding members Alexi Laiho (guitars and vocals), Jaska Raatikainen (drums), Henkka Seppälä (bass) and Alexander Kuoppala (guitars) soon found elements of classic heavy metal creeping into their music. After taking in keyboardist Janne Wirman to complete their line-up, they honed their combination of old school black metal, classic heavy, and death metal vocals into the sharpest instrument of its kind.
After Spinefarm Records received Children of Bodom’s Deadnight Warrior demo, it didn’t take long for the company to figure out what they had in their hands back in late 1996. Three demo spins later, the band was signed and ready to knock a few heads off with their debut album Something Wild. In their following albums Children of Bodom perfected their sound. Their music became a glorious mixture of their debut album’s heavy riffing raw sound and 2nd album "Hatebreeder’s" monstrous technical metal acrobatics. By their 2002 album Hate Crew Deathroll the band had also taken their song writing into new levels of aggressivity and heaviness.
In the Summer of 2003, Alexander Kuoppala left the band and was replaced by Roope Latvala, whose stellar playing had already graced countless of Finnish metal records. In early 2005 Children of Bodom barricaded themselves into studio to record their next full-length album. Released through Universal Music worldwide in September 2005, Are You Dead Yet?’s phenomenal success brought the world onto its knees. The successful AYDY-touring run was followed by the release of the Children’s first live DVD – Chaos Ridden Years – Stockholm Knockout Live in Autumn 2006. The massive show filmed in Sweden, at the Arena in Stockholm, was directed by Patric Ullaeus of In Flames-fame, and proved to be one of the most successful DVD releases in Finland, and certainly the most wanted live release of the year amongst metal fans!
The live release gave the band a breather, and Alexi Laiho finally found some time to start writing material for their next full-length release. As a teaser CoB released Tie My Rope , a special single song sample of the forthcoming material which was only released commercially in the States. Finally in August 2007 the band entered the Petrax-studios in the middle of the woods of Hollola, Finland. Stranded in the middle of nowhere, the band and their producer Mikko Karmila recorded more material for the album that was later dubbed Blooddrunk, a nine track killer of an album which shows Bodom at their heaviest and hardest yet.
Even more technical and more unforgiving than any of Children of Bodom’s earlier albums, Blooddrunk shows the raw side of Alexi Laiho. No mercy given, no easy routes chosen, the whole album is pure death, terror and murder from the beginning until its end. The title track of the album was shot into a video by German director Sandra Marschner, and the video displays the terrifying themes perfectly with a shot into the life of a dead, cold ghost town and its inhabitants.
With these Blooddrunk weapons at hand, CoB will head for tours next, starting their world domination from the States with the Gigantour, and continuing to wield their deadly scythe all over Europe, Japan and beyond.
Children of Bodom have come a long way since their humble beginnings, and today stand tall in the all time extreme metal hall of fame, commanding the respect and awe of both fans and colleagues alike. Children of Bodom have been hugely influential, but still, eight years down the road east and west alike, remain the leaders of the genre.
It is not mere precision, but the metal-mad passion that makes CoB unique in their craft.
