2003-09-01
In ancient times, when dinosaurs like Judas Priest roamed the earth and bands like Napalm Death and Bathory just started to emerge from the primordial soup of Heavy Metal, There were almost no high quality productions for the genre and so it became that even the greatest material came out sounding a bit on the offside (as in offside the road and straight into the nearest wall at 90 m.p.h.)
As compensation Children of Bodom had come out with a frightfully impressive production. No more Double Pedals that sound like a nervous woodpecker and guitar sound for a penny.
“Hate Crew Deathroll” has a deep swollen sound and style that combines Iron Maiden and Megadeath riffs with Death’s vocals and Majesty style of keyboards.
Although the album has a lot of commercial Kitsch in it (what did you except exactly?) but still it’s an excellent peace that takes the listener right back to the end of the 80s except for some pretty good electro synth parts in “needled 24/7” and “you’re better off dead”
One of the C.O.B’s strongest points is their extraordinary guitar work. Alexander Kuoppala and Alex Laiho blend parts in perfect harmony. Almost every song is just packed with techniques, crazy rhythmics, intertwining solo parts and classic harmonies on heavy distortion. Actually all guitar parts in the album are built on heavy distortion basis and speeds between fast and furious (you can count the distortionless guitar parts in the album on one finger more or less).
This new material is rhythmic and flowing and built just perfectly for the live act.
Here’s some info about the more interesting tracks:
“sixpounder” – starts with a heavy Racer X riff that changes into a Cradle like part and a tough H.M chorus. The C-part consists of a beautiful melodic guitar solo with strong keyboards backup.
“Chokehold (coked ‘n loaded)” starts just like “cowboys from hell” and continues with some progressive power metal with nice shrikes but the best part is the instrumental including the maniacal shred-keyboard solo by Janne Warman.
“you’re better off dead” – got some excellent electronic part with a bit if a Trancelike sound and a killer chorus with fast melodic guitar.
“hate crew deathtoll” – one of the fastest, powerful tracks in the album with a massive guitar solo and Jaska Raatikainen gives just petrifying sner and pedal work.
As for the lyrics…well… lyrics were never C.O.B’s strongest side. It’s a known fact excellent musicians often get stuck in an early stage of their mental development (i.e Mozart) an so it occurred that the words speak straight into the heart of slightly retarded 12 year old kids.
And still “hate crew deathroll” is an excellent album, beautifully produced with a more heavy progressive\glam style then black metal.
Tal Galfsky
