CHILDREN OF BODOM — Something Wild (review)

CHILDREN OF BODOM — Something Wild album cover

Album · 1997 · Melodic Death Metal

4/5 · 2021-01-13
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Starting out as Inearthed in Espoo, Finland, CHILDREN OF BODOM formed by guitarist ALex Laiho (R.I.P.) and drummer Jaska Raatikainen would go on to become one of Finland’s most successful metal bands with a string of gold albums. Starting out in 1993, the fledgling Inearthed existed for five years influenced by death metal bands such as Entombed, Cannibal Corpse and Obituary but with the arrival of Janne Warmann on keyboards, the band reinvented itself and emerged as one of the first examples of death metal and power metal fusion. The world would never be the same!

Having developed a unique sound that took several competing metal styles and forcing them to play together, Inearthed was forced to change its name before a recording contract for Spineform Records and after a random perusal through the phone book settled on Lake Bodom which was the scene of some murders. After some reworking, CHILDREN OF BODOM had arrived and released the debut album SOMETHING WILD In 1997 which at the time sounded like nothing else. Death metal didn’t take long to splinter off into a million categories but once thrash metal split into death metal and power metal, the two sort of became the antithesis of each other until CHILDREN OF BODOM changed all that.

Mostly tagged as melodic death metal, SOMETHING WILD comes across more of a power metal album with death metal elements therefore a deathened power metal album that showcases neoclassical wizardry, fast tempos, Iron Maiden inspired gallops and highly melodic tunes leaving only the growly vocals and blastbeats to really bring any death metal attributes to the table. The album showcased the guitar virtuosity of Laiho who has been labeled as one of Finland’s all time greatest guitarists however Warmann’s keyboard wizardry is also of an equal caliber with frenetic soloing tradeoffs that are highlighted on the Slayer cover “Silent Scream” that is included as a bonus track on some CDs.

Added to the aggressive mix of melodic power metal and death metal grit, SOMETHING WILD also features an interesting black metal atmosphere which possibly was gleaned from touring with Dimmu Borgir. There are also moments of thrash metal attacks and many moments of good old fashioned 80s heavy metal coming through in the mix. The music is really quite unclassifiable as it wriggles around through various stylistic moments but its’ perhaps the neoclassical underpinnings most apparent by the Mozart inspired intro of “Red Light In My Eyes Pt 2” that defines the CHILDREN OF BODOM sound.

This is one of the bands that seems to get a lot a hate. Purists of both death metal and power metal find CHILDREN OF BODOM to be an unthinkable bastardization of two classic metal styles but for those of us who aren’t so hung up on genre purities, i personally find this music to be quite fascinating in how it manages to juggle all these disparate stylistic effects and fuse them together to proficiently. CHILDREN OF BODOM truly hit the ground running and propelled themselves to the top fo the melo-death tiers with this eclectic and energetic mix of extreme metal styles. While i can’t say CHILDREN OF BODOM has ever topped my list of favorite all-time metal bands, i am always in awe of the musicianship on display and the maturity of the compositions. Excellent debut.