Children Of Bodom: A Chapter Called Children Of Bodom (Universal Music Finland, 2023)

It is tremendously painful to receive with joy the release of an album like A Chapter Called Children Of Bodom, a great live album that includes the last concert that Children Of Bodom would offer at the Helsinki Ice Hall before they splitted up in 2019. It is incredible that a band as in shape as the one led by the sadly deceased Alexi Laiho since its formation in 1993 ended so abruptly and almost without warning, but that’s how these things work.

The line-up of the album is very little different from their first line-up when they changed their name from Inearthed to Children Of Bodom. Only guitarist Alexander Kuoppala -who left the band in 2003 and was replaced by Roope Latvala in 2004- has been the only member who during the two decades of Children Of Bodom‘s life who has not been present in each of the stages through which the quintet had gone by. Daniel Freyberg, who later shared the band again with Laiho in Bodom After Midnight, was in charge of replacing Roope Latvala after his departure in 2015. Freyberg was only able to make his mark on the band’s last studio album, Hexed, something that until the release of A Chapter Called Children Of Bodom it had not changed.

As for the album itself, we could say that the selection of songs truly collects the best that Children Of Bodom managed to deliver in their twenty years of life, giving special emphasis to their acclaimed Hate Crew Deathroll from 2003 and the seminal Follow The Reaper album released in the year 2000, although the band takes a tour of their entire career, rescuing even some of their least interesting albums such as Relentless Reckless Forever from 2011 or Blooddrunk from 2008. Nothing to object in terms of the track list, they are all well distributed and the overall count leaves a very good taste in your mouth.

If we talk about the performance of its members themselves, I can affirm that all of them manage to offer a much improved version of themselves if we had compared this concert with one from the middle of the previous decade, to name an example. Although Alexi‘s voice fails to reach its maximum splendor at some moments, the final result is a very notable version of a band that seemed to have studied its end and that may have been prepared very well for this last concert.

The journey that begins with Under The Grass Clover is so sweet that at times one seems to be seeing Alexi on stage. Their loss is one of the ones I have regretted most in recent years, probably because Children Of Bodom was one of the first bands of the genre that I heard many years ago and for which I have always felt a very special affection. For that same reason it is very painful for me to listen to the dense riff of In Your Face without looking back and seeing myself when I was in high school and thought I was the coolest person in school.

It is worth highlighting some high points of this live album such as Everytime I Die or the energetic Follow The Reaper, songs that have accompanied me for so many years and that on this album stand out above the rest. Laiho and Freyberg offer here one of the best concerts they have ever done in their career, which is why at certain moments I think that their dissolution was planned and they wanted to leave their mark on the history of the band with a last concert as colossal as the one they A Chapter Called Children Of Bodom collects.

The last section of the show is made up of the band’s greatest classics, from the furious Hate Me! to the cathartic Downfall, leaving the anthem Hate Crew Deathroll and the primal Lake Bodom as the highlight of a magical and unforgettable evening. Keyboardist Janne Wirman and drummer Jaska Raatikainen deserve special mention, without forgetting the ever-present bassist Henkka Blacksmith. This album closes a very important chapter in the history of metal and in some way closes the circle that Children Of Bodom began in 1993 with the formation of Inearthed. It is impossible not to shed a tear when one thinks of the unjust end of Alexi Laiho, one of the most prolific and unique artists of the genre, but he somehow left part of his spirit in each of us and this album is responsible for reminding us that will always live in our hearts.