Band:	Children Of Bodom
Album:	I Worship Chaos
Style:	Extreme power metal
Release date:	October 2015

01. I Hurt
02. My Bodom (I Am The Only One)
03. Morrigan
04. Horns
05. Prayer For The Afflicted
06. I Worship Chaos
07. Hold Your Tongue
08. Suicide Bomber
09. All For Nothing
10. Widdershins
11. Mistress Of Taboo [Plasmatics cover] [Digipack bonus]
12. Danger Zone [Kenny Loggins cover] [Digipack bonus]
13. Black Winter Day [Amorphis cover] [Digipack bonus]
14. Cruel Summer [Bananarama cover] [Japanese Edition bonus]

It was a long, dark, and stormy night of the soul for Children Of Bodom as they wandered, fazed and abused, through the creative wasteland for 40 years. Pardon my mixed metaphors. 2013's Halo Of Blood came as a shock, being not only a much better album than anything from the previous decade, but also quite a good album on its own merits. I Worship Chaos does nothing of the sort.

Children Of Bodom have lost a lot of things over the years - classical influences, technicality, originality, Alexander Kuoppala, fans, respect - but I Worship Chaos uncovers how detrimental the loss of speed and energy has been to Bodom as well. Half of these songs resemble classic Bodom listlessly strung along at a fraction of the speed, the slower tempo draining them of impact, power, and any sense of importance. Bodom used to sound fierce, chaotic, and sharp; now they drift aimlessly throwing braindead riffs against the wall to see if something sticks. The first single from the album, "Morrigan," promised nothing, and nothing is what I Worship Chaos has delivered. The title sure is edgy, but the album is pointless.

Lose the Nightwish keys weeping in the background and the title track reduces to something accidentally over-written by an American groove metal band; "Suicide Bomber" sounds like it was computer-generated from all the leftover bits of previous Bodom albums, like some kind of incredibly bland musical hot dog. Only the uncharacteristically balladic "All For Nothing" breaks up the solid brick of disappointment that comprises the second half of the album, but largely for its singularity in the Bodom archives rather than for its musical merit.

Whatever "new album smell" might have accompanied I Worship Chaos fades away rapidly; by the second time through, "I Hurt" and "Horns," sufficiently interesting and enjoyable the first time around, start to fall into the chasm of mild irritation where the rest of the album dwells. "Prayer For The Afflicted" alone sustains itself through repeated plays - but, as a slower-paced and relatively low-energy journey, it doesn't pack enough punch to save the album. I'll still enjoy coming back to it, and perhaps "All For Nothing" now and then, but all I really want to do when I hear most of these tracks is throw on Something Wild and pretend that it's the new album instead.

To be fair, I Worship Chaos still represents some marginal improvement from Children Of Bodom's "lost weekend" - it just isn't half the album that Halo Of Blood is, and as good as Halo Of Blood is itself, it will never be Hatebreeder. Boring Bodom isn't bad Bodom, it's just boring Bodom. The more I repeat this, the more Halo Of Blood improves its standing in my assessment of the band's career. Maybe we'll get lucky and after two more yet-worse albums Bodom will crank out something that briefly recaptures their old glory again.