Children of Bodom
"Are You Dead Yet?"
Rating:
Reviewed by:
Beppo Blitzkrieg
Waaah! Children of Bodom is not thrash metal! They have a goddamn keyboard player in the band. Wah wah motherfucking wah!
Shut the hell up. I don’t care whether they are thrash or motherfucking be-bop, I will listen to the motherfucking CD and decide whether I like it or not based on whether they suck or not. (Note to my fucking editor: That was a lot of “whether”s, huh? Are you upset? You gonna withdraw my nomination for the Internet Pulitzer now? Well, I am debating WHETHER I should tell the Pulitzer Committee to suck my dick or lick my ass.) (Note from the Editor: Since Mr. BeepBeep already sucks, we suggest he tell the Committee to lick his ass in order to assure an equal exchange with the Universe.)
Finns are weird. They are not exactly a country of happy little buffalos, now, are they? No, rather grim and cold instead, and they’ll kill you dead with a big fucking knife if you say shit to them or even look at them cross-eyed. So why is it that they have all these fucking happy bands running around and doing chirpy little melodies like it was Polka Fest 2005? Stratovarius, Twilightning, Sonata Arctica, and yes… motherfucking Children of Bodom too. How can such a morosely depressed people come up with so much sickening happiness? Whenever I think of Ren & Stimpy doing “Happy Happy, Joy Joy”, Finland doesn’t exactly come to mind. Fucking Uzbekistan and Belarus sounds like a motherfucking blast next to Finland. Maybe it’s like with Norway. That’s a fucked up country too (the fucking polar opposite of Finland) with everybody doing their best to smile pleasantly and be as goody two shoes as you could possibly stomach. At the same motherfucking time they club baby seals for sports and have some of the most fucked up devil worshipping bands on the planet. Balance in the motherfucking universe! (Another obnoxious note from the Editor: See how that works?)
Anyway, this is COB’s fifth album (not counting the live one and all the damn sell out EPs and shit), and it pretty much picks up where “Hatecrew Deathroll” left off. Kinda… No, I don’t know. I really loved the last album, so I should be fucking fine with this one too then, right? Maybe I am going through my motherfucking changes, ‘cause this just doesn’t do me the same way as before. It comes together in bits and pieces, here and there, but not too many of the songs are as complete as on “Hatecrew”. It’s all half-assed shit. Like the first song for instance, “Living Dead Beat”. It has a really cool chorus but a dead beat (HA motherfucker!) nu-metal verse that sounds as boring as everything else out there. Hmmm… What can we do to liven things up? I know! Me! Me, me, me! Pick me! Here! They can clutter the whole thing up with disgustingly sweet keyboard melodies that just run around all over the place like a child molester at a ballerina convention. It is just so motherfucking PREDICTABLE! I fucking knew exactly what those keyboards were gonna sound like 5 minutes before COB even wrote the damn song. Should I sue them for royalties? What is 10,000 Finnish Marks anyway? $5? I’ll just go scavenge the return slots in the payphones at Grand Central instead.
The title track, “Are You Dead Yet?”, starts out real thrashy-like with a cool riff, only to let me down halfway on the way to the chorus. Yawn. I think I’m gonna take out a contract on the goddamn keyboard player. Main man Alex Laiho is such a phenomenal and melodic guitar player that he doesn’t need the backup from Joey Tempest’s lover in the background. How about you guys play those fucking swirly melodies on your fucking guitars instead, like God meant for your gay asses to do? That would be fucking cool! Not gay. Cool. Dumbass fuckers.
Ok, now we’re three songs into this album and since I’ve had it with the pussy hemorrhage of “If you want peace…” I’m reaching for the skip button.
Skip, skip, skippety-motherfucking-skip already!
OK. Can you say “sell out”? Say it. Give it a shot… I’ll wait.
Sell…
Out...
Sell the motherfuck out! Not since In Flames and Soilwork sold their souls to motherfucking Mammon Records, have I heard such fucking pointless generic drivel ooze out of my poor fucking speakers. I need a fucking exorcist or some shit now. I just had them done too, after those other bands defiled them, and ruined them for all other CDs. Motherfuckers! Call Ronnie James Dio! Cry for my fucking speakers!
I am so fucking disappointed I could fucking throw up (not that that I need an incentive for this normally – Autobiography: “The Art of Motherfucking Puking” by Beppo Blitzkrieg). What the fuck happened? Did the local store run out of original material and the band had to bail out some old recycled shit from the pawnshop?
Best song on the album is “Thrashed, Lost and Strung Out”, and even at that they fucking fail miserably. I feel like fucking dancing, and that is a bad fucking thing, let me tell you. I ain’t talking pogo dancing in the moshpit here. I’m talking doing the fucking Moonwalk and shit. Or the damn Polka! Like a gay ass lederhosen wearing motherfucking Ronald MacDonald, cracking out on the dance floor to an accordion player. I take it back. “Trashed, Lost and Strung Out” is the WORST song on the album. Such a waste of a good guitar solo too! “Strung out” my ass! On what, exactly? Fucking happy pills?
This albums sounds like the guys sat around and listened to their old stuff and said: “Ei saa peitta kokka kaali juuha intta rellivainen kukki motherfucker!” Translates too: “Do you guys think our motherfucking stupid ass idiot fans will buy it if we just take all we already did, mix it around a little, add some even happier melodies, sample the riffs from “Headbanger’s Ball 2” compilation and serve it up on a fucking platter?”
I have such a fucking pounding headache now. I will have fucking nightmares about all those keyboard loops for motherfucking weeks. Goddamn motherfucking twiddletwiddletwiddelee-twiddelee-duppi-doppi-doo! Aaargh! Twiddle-dumb and fucking twiddle-dumber on fucking Prozac! The fucking Devil going down to fucking Georgia with a fucking bagpipe and a bottle of motherfucking vodka would sound better.
The cover of “Oops I Did It Again” could have been FUNNY, if only they would have made it motherfucking funny. Here’s a news flash for you: Just covering that “unexpected” song doesn’t fucking make it funny! You gotta work it, girl! Instead they covered the fucking song pretty much true to the motherfucking original, complete with Spears samples in the chorus. Same tempo, same motherfucking key and everything. What the fuck? The “fun” stuff in the middle of the song, consisting of the guys cursing in Finnish and sounding all gay, comes off more like 10 frat boys in a limo on their way to their prom.
Here’s a big surprise on the final verdict:
Trash, lose and throw the fuck out!
- Beppo Blitzkrieg
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Artwork used with permission from Neverland Music Inc.
