Children of Bodom - Hexed

My introduction to Children of Bodom was through their 2005 album, Are You Dead Yet?, an album that most fans (from what I can tell) regard as the break in the string of great albums that began their career, making way for the even less loved Blooddrunk. Children of Bodom have long been one of those bands that, despite my well-discerned mixed feelings toward, I often feel this uncertain draw toward, yet when I give in and revisit their catalog, I find myself right back where I started as far as my opinion of them and their work is concerned. I often revisit albums like Hate Crew Deathroll and Follow the Reaper because those are the fan favorites. And while I see what made those albums so unique for melodic death metal at the time, they are hardly consistent in their wielding of what would become the band’s signature sound.

Those albums capture well the beneficially less-ultra-serious angle I have enjoyed from the band, and it’s their knack for melody and the freeness with which they go about finding it that brings me back. But it’s also that wildness on early albums that often led them off on compositional excursions that didn’t make any sense and didn’t pay off. I think the band has reeled that side of themselves in in recent years, and I think it has worked well for them.

The band have been subtly focusing their gaze on the more straightforward and less quircky aspect of their sound, and albums like Halo of Blood and I Worship Chaos have largely benefited from it, and though I enjoy those albums a bit more than albums where the band is trying to just be silly, it’s revealed to me that I might just kind of have a relationship with Children of Bodom’s music similar to that of my relationship with Skeletonwitch’s music. I try, but I don’t really see the appeal of blends of styles they try to mash together most of the time. Yet somehow, I was still excited for Hexed.

Because when they’re operating at their best, Children of Bodom are able to harness heaviness and lightheartedness into a wonderfully fun sort of metallic alchemy, The band have been on an upward trend as of late, and even though this album comes three and a half years after I Worship Chaos, I got this sense that the band was going to keep that momentum going.

And for the most part I was lucky in my guesses because it seems like Children of Bodom were really feeling it on this album, and it’s tangible not so much in their performances, but on the writing on most of the songs. The two introductory songs, however start the alvum off on such an awkward foot. “This Road” is a decent enough thrasher with some well-incorporated fast palm-muting, but it’s rather derivative and lacking of the kind of easy-going musical spirit the band love to bring, which they perhaps bring too much of on “Under Grass and Clover”. The guitar leads on the intro that persist throughout are clearly meant to be more dancy and fun, but I honestly find them really annoying.

After their warm-up with the first two tracks, the band do hit some cool grooves like the palm-muted thrashing of “Kick in the Spleen” and “Glass Houses”. I also especially love the spooky plinkings of chimes or xylophones that enhance the down-tuned menacing of “Hecate’s Nightmare”, which features one of the more catchy dualing harmony solos on the album as well. I find the keyboard part on “Platitudes and Barren Words” to be more of an unwelcome detractor from the song’s more aggressive features than a lighthearted foil to them, but the title track goes heavy on the straightforward thrash and the double-bass-crazy death metal to make up for it. It’s a little bit lacking in melody, but it shows that the band can do something compelling enough with a much more direct approach compared to what they’re known for.

The songs “Say Never Look Back” and “Relapse (The Nature of My Crime)” hearken back to Are You Dead Yet? with their kind of more beat-driven approaches, while the last songs on the album end with more fizzle than bang, and nothing new really to the track list.

Overall though, I was pleased with this album. Children of Bodom is a band whose energy and fun approach to metal I really enjoy and appreciate, and I love hearing when the stars align for them and all the things I like about their sound come to life together rather than in bits and pieces like most albums of theirs. I’m glad they’re keeping their focus on and mostly working on making their music as fun to listen to as it surely is to play for them.

Everyone’s going over to Alexi’s house/10