CHILDREN OF BODOM - Trashed, Lost & Strung Out
Label: www.centurymedia.com
1. Trashed, Lost & Strungout
2. Knuckleduster
3. Bed of Nails
4. She is Beautiful
Who the fuck listens to CHILDREN OF BODOM? Seriously, what kind of audience do they attract? Its confusing because on one hand, youve got the mall crowd gromits, flicking through the Guitar World magazines and letching at their beloved Wildchild Laiho sandwiched between Steve Vai & Zakk Wylde. And then on the other hand, youve got the nerdy power metal freaks. Why BODOM specifically get lumped into power metal more than the average melodic-death metal band is beyond me. The fact is, Im listening to this EP and Im reminded of IN FLAMES circa Clayman with an added drunken, party vibe. Power metal fans normally avoid anything with extreme vocals except when it comes to BODOM and maybe BAL-SAGOTH. Its pretty funny to imagine mallcore kids rubbing shoulders with HAMMERFALL geeks. Go figure.
So at the end of the day, this release will work wonders for the ADD crowd needing a ritalin suppository fix between bouts of D&D and Wrestlemania. I tell ya, this EP is like a complete whiplash frenzy of guitar fills, drum fills, keyboard twiddles, left speaker right speaker, fade in fade out, scream & shout at the top of your lungs type madness. The whole neo-classical NIGHTWISH with rough vocals element from Follow the Reaper is now all but dropped. There are four songs on the EP, and predictably enough nowadays, two of which are covers Bed of Nails by Alice Cooper, and She is Beautiful by that cunt Andrew WK. Yeah, its THAT song again. Ugh.
Ill admit, the Alice Cooper cover is fantastic. OK, true, the fact that I like the original helps (hell, Im going to throw on my Trash album as soon as Im done here), but normally I detest cover versions of famous songs redone with screamy/whiny vocals. Theyre just not normally interchangeable in my opinion (although the recent ARCH ENEMY version of Kill with Power was pretty fucking cool). Nevertheless, Bed of Nails works wonders and the fact that they throw in 30 seconds of blast beats at the end there really wraps it up quite uniquely.
Im not sure how Laiho fell into the good books over at Guitar World or Guitar Player because hes really not anything that special, but its great publicity for BODOM since that typically equates to an automatic guest slot at OzzFest. In any case, he can indeed play, but most of the twiddle is based on molesting the whammy bar and throwing out endless dive bombs. Put it this way, hes not exactly in the same league as Steve Vai and countless other shredders, but I blame the publications for not venturing further than the end of their noses. At the end of the day, BODOM are in the public eye and its not long before they start poaching more adolescent kids away from watching American/Pop Idol.
Pop metal music by kids, for kids.
5/10
Label: www.centurymedia.com
1. Trashed, Lost & Strungout
2. Knuckleduster
3. Bed of Nails
4. She is Beautiful
Who the fuck listens to CHILDREN OF BODOM? Seriously, what kind of audience do they attract? Its confusing because on one hand, youve got the mall crowd gromits, flicking through the Guitar World magazines and letching at their beloved Wildchild Laiho sandwiched between Steve Vai & Zakk Wylde. And then on the other hand, youve got the nerdy power metal freaks. Why BODOM specifically get lumped into power metal more than the average melodic-death metal band is beyond me. The fact is, Im listening to this EP and Im reminded of IN FLAMES circa Clayman with an added drunken, party vibe. Power metal fans normally avoid anything with extreme vocals except when it comes to BODOM and maybe BAL-SAGOTH. Its pretty funny to imagine mallcore kids rubbing shoulders with HAMMERFALL geeks. Go figure.
So at the end of the day, this release will work wonders for the ADD crowd needing a ritalin suppository fix between bouts of D&D and Wrestlemania. I tell ya, this EP is like a complete whiplash frenzy of guitar fills, drum fills, keyboard twiddles, left speaker right speaker, fade in fade out, scream & shout at the top of your lungs type madness. The whole neo-classical NIGHTWISH with rough vocals element from Follow the Reaper is now all but dropped. There are four songs on the EP, and predictably enough nowadays, two of which are covers Bed of Nails by Alice Cooper, and She is Beautiful by that cunt Andrew WK. Yeah, its THAT song again. Ugh.
Ill admit, the Alice Cooper cover is fantastic. OK, true, the fact that I like the original helps (hell, Im going to throw on my Trash album as soon as Im done here), but normally I detest cover versions of famous songs redone with screamy/whiny vocals. Theyre just not normally interchangeable in my opinion (although the recent ARCH ENEMY version of Kill with Power was pretty fucking cool). Nevertheless, Bed of Nails works wonders and the fact that they throw in 30 seconds of blast beats at the end there really wraps it up quite uniquely.
Im not sure how Laiho fell into the good books over at Guitar World or Guitar Player because hes really not anything that special, but its great publicity for BODOM since that typically equates to an automatic guest slot at OzzFest. In any case, he can indeed play, but most of the twiddle is based on molesting the whammy bar and throwing out endless dive bombs. Put it this way, hes not exactly in the same league as Steve Vai and countless other shredders, but I blame the publications for not venturing further than the end of their noses. At the end of the day, BODOM are in the public eye and its not long before they start poaching more adolescent kids away from watching American/Pop Idol.
Pop metal music by kids, for kids.
5/10
