this may well be a very short entry on my second experience watching children of bodom.

i started checking out their material proper after a recommendation from trabye. prior to this, i did muat turun a couple of tracks from hate crew deathroll but didn’t place much attention to them. i knew they played very fast and were labelled as melodic death metal (don’t you just love genre subcategorisations). i’d say they are a more aggressive version of dream theater without the prog slant. the precision of the the laiho-warman guitar/keyboard solos is just out of this world.

i was disappointed to only hear 5 songs from them when they opened for slipknot recently. so, when i heard they were headlining at the rock city in notts, i grabbed a ticket almost immediately. cannibal corpse, a band from brooklyn, NY were slotted to play before the COB set. i saw a few non-complimentary comments on the COB page on lastfm.com by fans of the corpse, along the lines of i’m-gonna-bugger-off-after-the-cannibal-corpse-set. i guess they don’t feel that COB was hard enough and shouldn’t be headlining. then again, different streaks for different freaks. cannibal corpse were heavy – the jackhammer-like blast beats in the background of low-keyed growls were the order of the day. personally, i’d like to know what people are singing about but the view of the raging moshpit from my vantage point tells me that listening to words were the last thing the fans wanted!

COB kicked off their set with hellhounds as they did at the slipknot show. despite the smaller size of the rock city, i felt i had a better view of alexi playing his guitars at the larger sheffield arena. as someone who only has in his possession the last three albums, i was oblivious to their earlier material like hate me!. sixpounder went down a storm with the punters going six!six!six! whilst i am still amazed to see janne warman playing the blooddrunk solo with ease whilst chugging down a beer.

i didn’t know what it was, but i thought they could’ve been way better than what i saw this evening. it was unfortunate to see alexi doing his are-you-ready-to-go-to-sleep-*snore* banter again after seeing it in sheffield only a few months ago! by the time they encored with hate crew deathroll, all i got was the intensity and the musical accuracy, but that was it.

rock city, nottingham 17.02.09 set: hellhounds on my trail / living dead beat / sixpounder / silent night, bodom night / banned from heaven / hate me! / children of decadence / bodom after midnight / follow the reaper / blooddrunk / in your face / angels don’t kill / lake bodom / bodom beach terror / downfall // [encore] bed of razors / hate crew deathroll
[from www.setlist.fm]