Children of Bodom announce their new album, Hexed, slated for March 8, 2019 release through Nuclear Blast, according to The PRP. The band’s frontman/guitarist Alexi Laiho commented on the forthcoming release:
“People have said that the album is generally catchier. So I started thinking about that, perhaps the song structures are easier to grasp on initial listen. But there’s some crazy shit in there, almost progressive or at least technical. There are certain melodies across the album that could have come from jazz songs, although they’re completely metal with us, of course (laughs).”
Bassist Henkka Blacksmith also discussed the new album, saying “For me, it has always been very hard to describe our new music. In a way it always feels familiar, but the new stuff also always surprises me. Here we have something that’s very Bodom, but somehow we haven’t done this kind of stuff maybe ever. Then again, someone said that there’s somehow similar vibe to what Follow the Reaper had. I don’t know. Anyway, we had a really hard time choosing the songs for the two videos, I guess that’s a positive problem.”
The band had Deins Forkas create the cover art for Hexed, shown below along with the album’s tracklisting. Blacksmith commented on the cover art as well.
“For some years already I have wanted to try a different approach with our cover art. We are so used to digital art so that is really hard to do something else. Doing it all the way with computer is somewhat safe and convenient. This time we all agreed to try it old school,” he said. “We found this cool dude and gave him simple instructions. The cover has to be purple and the reaper has to be central. Half a year later we got his work, and with little tweaking, we have the cover of Hexed. It is very different from what we are used to, even the Reaper looks different, but at the same time very spooky.”
Preorders of the album go on sale on Dec. 7th. A spring North American tour is in the works, as well as a summer European tour.
Tracklisting:
1. The Road
2. Under Grass And Clover
3. Glass Houses
4. Hecate’s Nightmare
5. Kick In The Spleen
6. Platitudes And Barren Words
7. Hexed
8. Relapse (The Nature Of My Crime)
9. Say Never Look Back
10. Soon Departed
11. Knuckleduster
12. I Worship Chaos (live)
13. Morrigan (live)
14. Knuckleduster (remix)
Photo credit: Owen Ela
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