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| Axes high - The tale of Lake Bodom Children Of Bodom hail from Espoo, Finland (Espoo is a city near Helsinki, Finland's capital). The band's name relates to one of Finland's biggest murder mysteries (still unsolved), the murders at the Lake Bodom (located in southern Finland). In the 1960s four teenagers were camping at the lake and three of them were butchered by some maniac with an axe. This murder case has bred many urban tales, and now, this band. The band was originally formed as Inearthed back in 1993 by Alexi and Jaska. Later on, Alexander, Henkka and the earlier keyboard player J.Pirisjoki joined. Inearthed released two demos Ubiquitos Absence Of Remission in 1995 and Shining in 1996. At that time the band played melodic death metal, lacking the neoclassical elements heard nowadays. The songs on the demos are good, and some riffs are reused years after. Inearthed were to publish their debut album through a small belgian record company. Janne Wirman was going to be used as session keyboardist. However, the infamous Ewo Rytk�nen at Spinefarm Records (Finland) got hold of the demo, took the band under its wing and made a deal of three albums. The band's name changed to Children Of Bodom and Janne joined the band permanently, luckily Describing or categorizing the music of Children Of Bodom is difficult. It's a bizarre mixture of classic 80's heavy (WASP, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest) and melodic, pompous power metal (Helloween, Stratovarius), lots of neo-classical guitar-heroism (Randy Rhoads, Yngwie Malmsteen), some speed/thrash (Stone) and death metal (early Sentenced) with barking, screamed vocals (Alexi's "jaujau" screams are a legend) and tons of boyish enthusiasm. Lots of classical music influences can be heard both in the guitars and keyboards. Still, the band remains whole, tight and very unique which is unusual in metal-music nowadays. Despite their young age (as far as I know, Alexander was born in 1974, the others 1979), these musicians are very adept with their instruments (e.g. Alexi has already achieved a guitar-hero status and Janne is voted among the best keyboard players in many magazines) and still better, manage to compose great songs unlike many so-called super-bands. The songs are filled with great melodies, catchy riffing and hooks (ready your air-guitar) and guitar versus keyboard duels, while the hoarse vocals and fast drumming bring heaviness to the songs Many guitar-heroes tend to get their kicks just by wanking the fretboard with fast scales and runs stolen from classical composers and creating songs around solos (one swedish player comes to mind...) but in this band, the fast technic playing really suits in the songs. The band has made quite an impact to the metal music scene here in Finland. New bands are started with COB as a main influence. Guitar-heroism and shredding have become popular again. Go to a music store that sells instruments and you've a good chance of seeing young (and not so young) kids playing bodom-riffs with Jackson Rhandy Rhoads guitars. I bet they have sold few of those lately. |
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