Review Summary: Bodom's latest offering is mediocre at best.
Children of Bodom already have somewhat of a legendary status in metal despite only 11 years in the business. Their first three albums are regarded as classics and gave them the reputation as one of the best Finnish metal bands. However, the band has been on a downhill slope ever since 2000’s
Follow the Reaper, which was followed by
Hate Crew Deathroll which was received with mixed reactions and the poor
Are You Dead Yet? Bodom are looking to turn things around with their sixth studio album
Blooddrunk and reclaim their glory days. Vocalist/guitarist Alexi Laiho has stated this album is faster and "thrashier" than their last album.
Blooddrunk is more thrash influenced than anything the band's done, which is evident on "Done With Everything, Die With Nothing" and "Hellhounds on My Trail." The band’s sound is a lot more polished on this album as well. The guitars come in crisp and clear in the mix which results in the overall sound being very heavy and guaranteed to have your head banging. The guitar work is solid and the strongest point on
Blooddrunk. It’s pretty much what a fan would expect from Children of Bodom: heavy, fast riffs that are catchy at times. As mentioned earlier, there are some trashy riffs on here too in songs like "Roadkill Morning." The guitar solos on
Blooddrunk are the fast, technical, shredding solos that most Children of Bodom fans have become accustomed to over the years, only much less creative. There is a decreased use of keyboards on
Blooddrunk as well. The keyboards hardly build any atmosphere and simply mimic the chord progression or the riffs when used with the exception of a couple songs, one of those being the title track. "Blooddrunk" starts off with a very nice intro and introduces a solo later in the song. "Tie My Rope" is another song that heavily uses keyboards. "Banned From Heaven" is the slowest song on the album and one of the worst ones too with it being very tedious and boring.
The weakest part of this album are the lyrics. Nearly every song sounds like it was written in less than five minutes by an angst-ridden thirteen-year-old. All of the tracks deal with the redundant topics of violence, anger, and hate. An example is the chorus of "Smile Pretty for the Devil" in which Laiho sings, "Ten times I died it’s all the same / I’ve only got myself to blame / Never begged for you to rescue me / Then again no could ever find you." Another example of poor songwriting is the title track, "Blooddrunk." Laiho sings, "They say drinking is a way to die / But at the end dying is a way to drink." Children of Bodom were never amazing songwriters, but the lyrics on this album are just terrible. Lahio's voice has also become very weak over the years. His performance on this album isn't terrible but it's obvious that his voice has gotten worse and worse over the years.
Blooddrunk doesn’t outdo Children of Bodom’s earlier works, and it’s clear that the band's glory days are over. It's also debatable whether or not this is an improvement compared to
Are You Dead Yet? There is no sense of progression on this album. Where are they supposed to go after this album? It's obvious that the band aren't going to make any albums like
Follow The Reaper anymore. The only positive thing on this album, in my opinion were some of the riffs, everything else was mediocre to bad. Lets just hope that their next album can have some improvement over their last two outings.
This Message Edited On 10.01.08
