If you crossed classic Slayer with Deep Purple, well, you got Black Sabbath's Born Again album, but that is a different story. If you tried it again, with a little more emphasis on Slayer, you would get Finland’s Children of Bodom and their new release, Are You Dead Yet?
. Finland is known in the metal circles as the capital of death metal, which is very visible in the band’s style. But I’m not a big fan of death metal, but there is a progessive side of Children of Bodom that really compliments that death metal core. I think it is the addition of keyboards, which have an almost techno (maybe metalcore) urban dance club feel. My biggest hang-up with the band isn’t the music (because I love that), it is the death metal style Oscar the Grouch vocals. But, the music is so good, and the vocals are either buried in the mix, or less growling, that I really like “Are You Dead Yet?”. One of the weird things is how I actually found out about the band. Since I’ve signed up for Last.fm recently, I still check back to see what sort of “neighbors” they picked out for me, and the one thing most of them had been listening to recently was the new Children of Bodom CD. So I jumped over to Napster, listened to the tracks, and was intrigued enough to go out and by the CD. My favorite songs are the title track “Are You Dead Yet?” and “If You Want Peace … Prepare For War”.
I just recently found out that COB is coming to tour America, along with another new favorite band, Bullet For My Valentine (their CD will be released in the USA on Feb 14th) and Chimaira. One of the first dates will be at the Starland Ballroom Sunday March 19th, which is in my neck of the woods, and one great place to see bands. I’ll be going to see Overkill at the Starland on Saturday, March 4th, so it is shaping up to be a metal March.