Awful Metal Video of the Week: Children of Bodom - Was it Worth it?

Laiho seen here, looking about as metal as usual. 

There are a lot of reasons I severely dislike Finnish metal band, Children of Bodom. Among some of these reasons being first and foremost, all of their music sounds like it was recorded with a cell phone. The newest release from the band, Relentless Reckless Forever certainly is no exception. Every gain, overdrive, distortion and fuzz dial that is involved in the mix of COB's instrumental effects, is cranked to 10 and then broken off. This sounds pretty metal in theory, but the result is this over-distorted, super chunky, low-tuned static noise that penetrates the migraine center of my cranium with ease. To make matters worse, Alexi's screaming gets the same distorted treatment as the rest of the instruments. Add some twinkly keyboard playing, and the whole thing is a hot mess. The next reason of course, would be that they are lyrically the worst metal band in existence. Midget mangirl front man, Alexi Laiho writes lyrics for his music like they're something out of an angsty 8th-grade art journal. The reliance on f-bombs, other English curse words, and crude phrases is juvenile and simply inexcusable in an established metal act. A poor grasp on English is hardly the culprit; Laiho speaks it fluently. A semi-recent interview where he was hawking his signature ESP Randy Rhoads knock-off V, sheds some light on COB's abominable lyric writing:

"I definitely write the music first, and then at the last minute I write the lyrics. Always a painful time for me."- Alexi Laiho

Me too:

Typical Children of Bodom lyric.

So with my negative opinion of the band aside, let's go ahead and take a look at their latest on the internet, off the internet, on the internet music video of "Was it worth it?" No it wasn't...

Skateboarding? Seriously? Is this really the theme of the music video? I'd expect that from the likes of Sum 41 or Good Charlotte, but COB has no limits to how unmetal they are willing to prove themselves. None of it is significantly impressive skateboarding either. Just some ollies, kick flips, and grinds. Yeah, I know what an ollie is... I was 13 once too. This is basic, unimaginative crap I see tweens doing regularly in the grocery store plaza, just waiting to give an attitude to the first authority figure that tells them to stop loitering. The big difference here is that the kids in the parking lot don't have the privilege of slow-motion effects and film editing to cut away from all the times they trip, stumble, and fall on their faces. Which is about 90% of what kids who skateboard actually do. The other 10% of the time, they successfully land a trick, only to trip immediately afterwards and launch their wheely board toys underneath oncoming vehicles. Not to mention the constant clacking and banging of wood on pavement that the rest of us get to enjoy while they figure out how to pull off their sweet moves. The good thing is we don't see or hear any of that in the music video. I just imagine it happening constantly during the filming on set. 

The members of Children of Bodom are playing in the center of a half-pipe while the flashing stage lights randomly light up all the stylish COBHC ("Children of Bodom Hate Crew") merch the band is wearing, available to you from select edgy clothing retailers everywhere. What exactly is a "hate crew" supposed to be anyway? Besides some more words to add on what already consists as a lot of words for a band name, that is. Is it supposed to their fan club? Is it a band name that they wish they considered before going with the piss-poor decision that they did? I know they had an album called "Hate Crew Deathroll", but that only makes me wonder what a "death roll" is. (Looked it up, something about boats...) So the story goes, COB figured their name out by flipping through a phone book. I tried to name a musical act in a similar fashion, but so it turned out, "Bob Dylan" was already taken. Who would have guessed?

I already see myself writing my violation post about beanies now. It's easily Alexi's favorite type of headgear. There's something that deeply confuses me about somebody who is wearing a sleeveless muscle shirt (or "lanky girl arms shirt" in this case) as well as a winter hat. Are you hot or cold? Which is it? If it's warm enough to have such a light-shirt, then why have a cap knitted with heavy cotton covering your head 98% of the time? I know the whole losing 45% of your body heat myth was debunked some time ago, but I can't imagine wearing a beanie for any period of time without being severely sweaty and uncomfortable. Even if I'm shoveling snow in 10 below weather, I need to take the thing off every 10 minutes to get some friggin air to my skull. I don't know the stench of a festering disease bad enough to be compared to the possible odor residing beneath Laiho's nasty skullcap. I don't really ever want to know. 

This video really blows and has nothing to offer. Like I said before, even if you're a skater kid, this is kind of underwhelming. Imagine how I must feel. As a metalhead, I'm too fat and usually too drunk to ever maintain anything related to the balance necessary to partake in such a hobby. I just don't give a shit about skateboarding, I don't know a lot of metal fans that really do. It's just kind of a strange combination we're seeing here. Why skateboarding? This video would have been way more entertaining, and about the same level of confusing, if COB played on some platform out in the middle of the ocean, and some overpaid white dudes were darting around the water in purple jet skis. I guess it wasn't in the budget.

Here's what was in the budget: the cost of one skateboard lost to a fire. I think they realize in the middle of making this, that things just aren't looking too metal. They don't really have the choice to back out of the skater thing now, so the only thing they could think of at this point, was to burn a skateboard and have some kids jump on it for a couple quick seconds.

Please kids, try that at home.


I wait to see if any skater kids catch ablaze in the video after the meager stunt, but alas, no dice. Probably would have been the only redeeming quality of he entire video, but since it didn't happen, there are none.