The Children of the most metal lake in the universe have joined us once again. As a sample from the upcoming Are You Dead Yet?-album came the single In Your Face, which gives us a bit reformed COB and more of the twisted humour that has been prevalent on previous releases.

The title tune begins with chugging riffing and steady drumming, that holds some tribal vibes, that don’t remind one of Bodom at all. But once Warmans keyboards kick in with the excellent melodies, the notice is instant. Its Bodom allright. Some surprisingly rocking riffs lead into a full-on thrash-beat and magnificent grooves. I´ve heard a lot of criticism over the “flying fuck”-lyrics that abound the track, but it doesn’t bother me one bit. I realize how hypocritical I am when saying that, as thinking back to all the amounts of cheap-shooting I have done with mentions about “having nothing else to say but fuckfuck” towards bands like Limp Bizquit. But that’s the situation here, and my fist is pumping regardless. And be honest here, COB has never been a lyrical band, its about the music mainly, and I hold it superb. Although I cant help but crack up every time when the chorus spits “Its my world, your in it, It´ll take you down in a minute!” Marvellous line:D And as a big fan of gang shouts, I gotta love those “INCOMING” spots. Live show gold.
I´ve also seen many harsh words about the musical direction. Granted, it has gone quite far from the classically influenced, black-tinged days of Something Wild. The new tune is much simpler, rock-oriented and follows quite close to the thrashier lines of Hatecrew Death Roll. It also concentrates very much on the chorus, which on the whole is very catchy. So as much as I liked the virtuosity-based material of Hatebreeder and the earlier works, I dig this like all hell as well.

Then there´s the quite interesting cover choice of the day. If someone thought that The Ramones or Andrew WK in the past had been peculiar selections, I doubt very many had Britney Spears on their minds. The version of Oops, I Did It Again is quite good, especially in the humorous middle speech were Alexi is handed a sextet of ale, to quote the momentarily smarted-up Homer Simpson. As a quick translation: “-Ok, hey guys Im leaving now! -Nono, wait a minute, Aku! Before you go, we got something for you. – Oh my, goddammit that’s looks good. Isnt that…that’s a sixpack, right?!? – Yeayea, it is! – Oh man, you shouldn’t have, besides weve got the hard liquers in there too! – Well yeayea but, you know, for starters in the morning!” *and que solo* For the few first times this really cracked me up. For those thinking that Britneys vocals were left in the bottom, that is not true as far as I know. According to my knowledge, the female backing is sung by the bands good friend Jonna Kosonen, a member of the now defunct Nylon Beat, a very popular pop-duo here in Finland. Jonna also provided vocals for the latest Warmen-album, so I believe she is the one singing. Just pointless funfacts, that might not be facts after all:D

The choice of the song is great in my view, as I support anything in the metal circles that might fire up and get to the nerves of too stuck-up, elitist tr00metallers. Humour belongs in metal as far as Im concerned. The best thing about it is that some douchebags probably have thought that the cover was done seriously in hopes of airplay or something. I think the bursts of laughter at the end of the tune should assure any doubts that the song wasn’t meant to be a total joke and for fun. My complaint considering the cover is that COB didn’t take their cover far enough with the rocking and heaviness. Its just mid-tempo chugging all the way, I would have loved some blastbeats like in the cover of Coopers Bed Of Nails or some sick grind-breakdowns to really make the song sound different. So that’s why the version all in all is just OK.

The third song is simply a “radio edit” of the title track, with the only difference to the first track being that every curse word is bleeped. And by bleeping I mean actual “bleep” sounds, not silent spots like usually in cleaned-for-radio versions. This also was quite clearly done as a bit of a “joking” comment to the censoring systems. Although I would have loved even more if every “fuck” would have been covered by a human voice saying “bleep”. That would have truly been good commentary.

As a whole, this release had me pretty pumped up for the new album. Not as much as Thrashed, Lost & Strung-Out (which is humoungous!), but almost. Looking forward to the main event.