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Album: Paint the Sky With Blood Artist: Bodom After Midnight Genre: #metal Sub-Genres: death metal, melodic death metal Label: Napalm Records Non-Airable Tracks: 1 , 2 Up for review today is the first and final release from Bodom After Midnight. This band is of course the spawn of the late Alexi Laiho of Children of Bodom. Laiho unfortunately passed away in December, just days after the filming of music videos for this album. His death was pretty unexpected and as a fan I was quite sad to hear about it. Laiho's guitar prowess has long been highly regarded, and I have to concur in the belief that his songwriting and guitar writing is exceptional. Released posthumously on April 23, this EP came out a bit ago, but I have been too busy to review it until now, my apologies.
There are three songs on this EP, two new original songs and a cover. The original songs first, they are excellent. These songs have everything you want from death metal/melodic death metal. If you enjoy Children of Bodom, you will love these. Both songs have many incredible guitar riffs and too many great moments to write down here. The drums are also a standout in this album, they are very well mixed and have a lot of power, keeping the energy high during the whole EP. The drum writing and playing is also incredible, the beats and double bass are very clean and the fills are creative but tasteful. I really can't commend these drums enough.
The third and final song of this EP is a cover of Dissection's 1995 song "Where Dead Angels Lie." This song is one of my favorites by Dissection, and as much as I would love to gush over Dissection's great music, I will just say that this song is already excellent. Bodom After Midnight do a good job with the cover, almost exactly replicating the original song with all instruments and such. The guitar work is great for the song, and you can really tell that the band is paying homage to the original song while not just copy and pasting. That is essentially my main praise and gripe with this cover; it is exactly what I would expect from Children of Bodom covering Dissection. The original definitely has more black metal atmosphere, but the cover performs the melodic death metal of the song perfectly. My personal preference is the original due to my predilection to black metal. This is not to say that the cover lacks anything, it simply feels more melodic death metal. The cover is well thought out, the synth, choir, and bridge section are perfectly executed. While I will maintain the original is better, this cover is a great closer for the EP and I personally could not have chosen a better song to cover for Laiho's final work.
Overall, this EP is worth a listen. At only three songs and less than 15 minutes, you are doing yourself a disservice by skipping over this record. Even if you don't know anything about Children of Bodom, "Paint the Sky with Blood" is one to check out, and it is a worthy addition to Alexi Laiho's expansive catalog.
RIP ALEXI 1979 - 2020 Sounds Like:
Children of Bodom
The Black Dahlia Murder kinda
Recommended Tracks:
All of them
"Where Dead Angels Lie" - 6:21
Reviewer’s Name: Nathaniel Smith Date of Review: 5/5/21
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