CHILDREN OF BODOM's ALEXI LAIHO Discusses 'Hexed' Lyrical Themes In New Album Trailer

The second trailer for "Hexed", the upcoming tenth album from Finnish metallers CHILDREN OF BODOM, can be seen below. In the clip, frontman Alexi Laiho discusses the lyrical themes of the disc, which will be released on March 8 via Nuclear Blast Records.

Alexi says: "The lyrics, in general, they're about different things here and there. But mostly, they just come from real life and real feelings. Usually anything that's negative that's happening inside my head that I need to get out somehow. I need to vent all the negative stuff that's going on inside my head, and that's the best and safest way for me to do it. I channel my shit feelings through the music and at least try to turn it into something positive."

"Hexed" saw the return to Finland's Danger Johnny Studios where COB was reunited with Mikko Karmila ("I Worship Chaos", "Halo Of Blood", "Hatebreeder", "Follow The Reaper" and "Hate Crew Deathroll") who recorded everything except keyboards and also produced the album with the band. Janne Wirman recorded keyboards at Beyond Abilities Studios. The album was mixed and mastered at Finnvox Studios in Helsinki, Finland.

For this album, the band enlisted Deins Forkas to create the album artwork. Henkka commented on the cover: "For some years I've wanted to try a different approach with our cover art. We are so used to digital art, so it's really hard to do something else. Doing it completely with a computer is somewhat safe and convenient. This time we all agreed to try going old school. 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 now 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."

"Hexed" track listing:

01. The Road
02. Under Grass And Clover
03. Glass Houses
04. Hecate's Nightmare
05. Kick In The Spleen
06. Platitudes And Barren Words
07. Hexed
08. Relapse (The Nature Of My Crime)
09. Say Never Look Back
10. Soon Departed
11. Knuckleduster
12. I Worship Chaos (live)
13. Morrigan (live)
14. Knuckleduster (remix)

Laiho comments: "People have said that this 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]"

"For me, it has always been very hard to describe our new music," comments bassist Henkka Seppälä (a.k.a. Henkka T. Blacksmith). "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, possibly ever. Then again, someone said that there's a somewhat similar vibe to what 'Follow The Reaper' had. I don't know. Anyway, we had a really hard time choosing the songs for the videos. I guess that's a positive problem to have."