The craziest Finns break out from their self-burial under the ice

Children Of Bodom/Halo Of Blood (2013)-Review:
 [Album Rating: Near-Classic 9/10.]
[Country: Finland. Genre: Melodic Death Metal.]

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Children Of Bodom have been busy over the past 10 years since 2003's Hate Crew Deathroll.... They have aggressively provided themselves with horrific self-inflicted wounds to the head, heart, and soul in the form of their past 3 albums. To almost any observer, it was clear that this band had gone down In Flames. Gone were the intricate, jaw-dropping neo-classical melodic histrionics. Gone was the youthful enthusiasm & exuberant energy. Roy had gone from a grimly romanticized representation of death (early album covers) to a dumbed-down splash of gore (Blooddrunk album cover). And the music followed suit: unmemorable and generally annoying. In Flames were secure in their control over the most heart-breaking precipitous fall from greatness in metal history, but Children Of Bodom were, in their own dumb way, trying to take it from them.

There they were, Children Of Bodom, after their 3 self-inflicted scythe strikes / albums, lying in a halo of blood. It sure as hell looked over. There were other bands to listen to now, and we all could clutch the early Bodom records to our chests as tremendous examples of how great rock music can be. And then suddenly it's June 2013.., we see an album cover with a pensive Roy searching the ice for the beating heart of the Hatebreeder. A bright surprising late Spring release of a record with a classic icy aura! With an album title that could be an acknowledgement of their recent near-death status that they had brought upon themselves, the true, frosty Bodom corpses that had waited, ignored, on the gurney, for a decade, in the dank hall outside the hospital basement-floor morgue, remembered their talent and stood up to Follow The Reaper and run wildly up the hospital escalator with their fittingly-named Halo Of Blood comeback album. With this, the craziest of Finns broke out from under the ice, to live again.

CHILDREN OF BODOM / HALO OF BLOOD [RATING 9 / 10]

Synopsis: Bodom is back to doing what they do best...back to doing what made them worth paying attention to in the first place!

[TOP 2 TRACKS: ONE BOTTLE AND A KNEE DEEP, WASTE OF SKIN]
[Album released June 2013 on Nuclear Blast]