Children Of Bodom
Hatebreeder

This album is not a masterpiece... it is THE masterpiece.

Finally, Alexi Lahio manages to mix all the components that have made the Finnish combo among the most famous and eclectic in the world, pulling out of the hat a perfectly assembled creature, where the metallic parts are polished to a shine and the subtle, almost imperceptible black veins, reminiscent of a now very distant past, peek out here and there, between a sweep and a riff with clear neoclassical inspiration.

The prodigious creature grows with each listen, moving from the primal rage and fury of Warheart to the full realization of its technical abilities in Silent Night Bodom Night, where a mid-tempo with a double pedal in grinder style will provide you with some decent material for your home headbanging.
We even allow the young and inexperienced creature a small detour into the cheeky and raw territories of Hatebreeder's "punk" only to be rewarded by the hypnotic Bed of Razors, which in its chorus ventures into calmer, more relaxed territories, a moment of reprieve to rest our ears, fascinated as well as astonished, before continuing to be pleasantly tortured by the assaulting power metal of Towards Dead End where Alexi Lahio rules with a 360° sweeping and humiliates anyone who thought they could become a decent guitarist.
The sweetness of the Black Widow intro deceives us about the true nature of this song, which in my opinion is one of the best realized, thanks also to the excellent songwriting work of Janne Warmann, who between "orchestra hit" strings and winds, envelops us in a refined neoclassical atmosphere.

However, it's not yet time to congratulate those who created all this; if anyone still had any doubts about the greatness of this masterpiece, the duo Wrath Within and Children Of Bodom will convince us that we spent our €18 very well. I don't think there's anything to say about Downfall, except that we should remember this song... because it will be the last one we can hear from the real Children Of Bodom, a creature that Alexi Lahio, from Follow The Reaper onwards, is leading by the hand towards an ever more dangerous stylistic evolution with an uncertain outcome.

There's just one thing left to define for this masterpiece... I'd say a nice "power extreme metal," a big melting pot where the most varied influences come together for a single purpose: to satisfy those who daily battle against knots, clogged sinks, and various shampoos to have enough material to devote to a prolific headbanging.