CHILDREN OF BODOM - Some Hate Is Gonna Roll!
By Martin Popoff

Finnish razor warriors Children Of Bodom hope to continue their upward trajectory with their fourth studio album, a typically fleeting collection of silk and steel anthems called Hate Crew Deathroll. Alexi "Wild Child" Laiho & Co. have not made any big changes, but then again, the fans seem happy, given worldwide sales of 130,000 pancakes for the band's last album, '01's Follow The Reaper. Will they remain happy? Just what has changed within the band's speedy keyboard thrash domain?

"I think as far as the songs and production goes, I think it's a lot heavier and more aggressive than the ones before," begins the Children/Sinergy axe-slasher. "And we actually put in a lot of effort to make it sound that way. There was some stuff we've never done before. For example, we doubled the rhythm guitars which makes them sound so much bigger. And we put more time into the keyboard sounds. Also, we didn't give a f**k if there were sounds that sounded industrial or techno. We didn't care if people were going to go, 'What the hell is that?!' If something sounded good, we just did it. And with the production, I think the sounds are more hardcore-ish than we had before. We had distorted bass that we put pretty high up in the mix. So yeah, I just think it's tighter and angrier."

Like I say, don't look for radical adjustments here, but there are stronger choruses, more logic, new textures, and some really heavy sounds, such as those reverberating through 'Sixpounder', which Laiho considers the least characteristic song on the album.

"For me it's impossible to categorize our music, to put a label on it," answers Laiho to do the rock critic thing and articulate the sound (a lot bloody easier than he seems to think!). "There are just tons of elements from different styles of metal. There is this speed/thrash thing going on and also the black/death metal thing. There's a lot of punk rock and hardcore in it too. All of those put together.

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