(__Joonas__)
Followed the Reaper
I realized that Alexi needs to find something that will inspire him to write music in a way he used to. I mean, just look - HOB was inspired by Tonmi`s death, and it was a step in good direction, it brought back some oldschoolish ideas, it was best Bodom stuff in years, parts of some songs had really good potential (All Twisted chorus, Transference bridge to solos, Bodom Blue Moon intro and main riff). I fear he doesn`t have that inspiration for new album. Guy has settled life, stable relationship, money, even doesn`t drink anymore (and this used to be his great inspiration tool), all he finds inspiration from these days is that stupid movie with that Dude character. Big Lebowski or whatever. Seriously, we need that pain, anger, depression and misery again. Only that can create atmospheric music, not riff - oriented - something that will be forgotten in two years when they create new album...
Amen... except I don't wish more harm for Alexi... he has progressed to a new level as a human recently, he seems to value himself more and he's not medicating his underlying depression by getting wasted anymore. Why should he? When you take distance from your troubles you tend to dive into soul searching, and that is why Halo of Blood took one step back to the past.
The inspiration you talk about, every artist uses their hard experiences as material in their art to create emotional charge, and thus give themselves therapy, but no-one has endless amounts of heart-blood, that's why the cult pieces are usually among the first 2-4 releases, be it CD's, books, video games, movies.
Now we just hope Alexi took distance from disturbance and surrounded himself with an environment that allowed him to dive into the depths of creativity and come up with a fresh perspective to the romantic demonology and core essence of Bodom. When you listen to songs such as Warheart, it's like treating a demonic cobra that requires masterful playing from its seducer in order to let him stare at him without killing him. It's not just notes, it's like there's an invisible dark consciousness underneath the music that controls the impressive playing. It's like there was an intense, silent plan keeping the songs intact. Their music seemed like it wasn't even made by humans.
I believe they can still do great metal music, but they need to discover the musical style and atmosphere that works, they should look for a way to sound more alien than ever, that is the secret key, but will they do it, or just pound on blindly? With Halo of Blood they finally reached a dead end in terms of soundworld, when the colour melted off and there was nothing more to give, just a couple dark songs among the ten. Even without recent personal trauma/inspiration, there's no reason why you couldn't write death metal even on a sunny day; the world is full of incredibly joyful and incredibly terrible subjects, what matters is whether the metal has power to touch and stir you.