A playthrough video for CHILDREN OF BODOM's new single, "Under Grass And Clover", can be seen below. In the clip, guitarist/vocalist Alexi Laiho runs through the song — the first single from the band's upcoming 10th album, "Hexed" — in its entirety. "As a guitar player, this song is so much fun to play — from all the arpeggio based melodies to the thrashy riffs and the rad twin solo with Janne [Wirman, the band's keyboardist]," Laiho told Guitar World, which premiered the video. "It's upbeat, catchy, short and sweet — old-school COB to the core. Can't wait to play it live!" "Hexed" will be released on March 8, 2019 via Nuclear Blast Records. The disc saw the return to Finland's Danger Johnny Studios where COB was reunited with Mikko Karmila ("I Worship Chaos", "Halo Of Blood", "Hatebreeder", "Follow The Reaper" and "Hate Crew Deathroll") who recorded everything except keyboards and also produced the album with the band. Janne Wirman recorded keyboards at Beyond Abilities Studios. The album was mixed and mastered at Finnvox Studios in Helsinki, Finland. For this album, the band enlisted Deins Forkas to create the album artwork. Bassist Henkka Seppälä (a.k.a. Henkka T. Blacksmith) commented on the cover: "For some years I've wanted to try a different approach with our cover art. We are so used to digital art, so it's really hard to do something else. Doing it completely with a computer is somewhat safe and convenient. This time we all agreed to try going old school. We found this cool dude and gave him simple instructions — the cover has to be purple and the reaper has to be central. Half a year later, we got his work, and with little tweaking, we now have the cover of 'Hexed'. It is very different from what we are used to, even the Reaper looks different, but at the same time very spooky." Laiho said: "People have said that this album is generally catchier. So I started thinking about that; perhaps the song structures are easier to grasp on initial listen. But there's some crazy shit in there — almost progressive or at least technical. There are certain melodies across the album that could have come from jazz songs, although they're completely metal with us, of course. [Laughs]" "For me, it has always been very hard to describe our new music," commented Seppälä. "In a way, it always feels familiar, but the new stuff also always surprises me. Here we have something that's very BODOM, but somehow we haven't done this kind of stuff, possibly ever. Then again, someone said that there's a somewhat similar vibe to what 'Follow The Reaper' had. I don't know. Anyway, we had a really hard time choosing the songs for the videos. I guess that's a positive problem to have." "Hexed" track listing: 01. The Road 02. Under Grass And Clover 03. Glass Houses 04. Hecate's Nightmare 05. Kick In The Spleen 06. Platitudes And Barren Words 07. Hexed 08. Relapse (The Nature Of My Crime) 09. Say Never Look Back 10. Soon Departed 11. Knuckleduster 12. I Worship Chaos (live) 13. Morrigan (live) 14. Knuckleduster (remix)
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