Three years after the release of their previous studio-album, "Are You Dead Yet?", the Finnish quintet is finally coming up with a new opus. Not a big surprise for the fans however, who went before through the same sort of gap between 2000's very impressive "Follow The Reaper" and "Hate Crew Deathroll" (2003). Of course, the longer the wait the higher the expectations! With a slight change of musical direction on "Are You Dead Yet?", where Laiho and company appeared to favor a more aggressive approach, many judged detrimental to the melodic aspect of the previous albums, nobody really knew what was going to be on the menu of "Blooddrunk".

Well, with the opening track, "Hellhounds On My Trail", the Finns appear to have adopted an even more aggressive approach than before. However, the omnipresent catchy melodies emphasized by flawless keyboards of the title-track, "Blooddrunk", thanks to keyboardist-extraordinaire Janne Warman (WARMEN, SINERGY), might turn out to please everyone, old as well as new fans. Following the idea (as introduced by the band) that on each album a song-title would always include the word 'Bodom', the brutal "LoBodomy" keeps the tradition going. When the following track, "One Day You Will Cry", gets started, it clearly seems that the keyboards have taken a slightly lesser importance in the musical aspect of the quintet, as seen on the last two albums.

On the other hand, the guitar-riffs, supported by killer guitar solos, are more aggressive than ever and on "Smile Pretty For The Devil" and "Tie My Rope", Alexi Laiho and Roope Latvala prove that they are among the better ones in today's musical scene. The very thrashy "Done With Everything, Die For Nothing" is even more impressive as far as technical performance goes. Very much in the fashion of "Everytime I Die" and "Angels Don't Kill", "Banned From Heaven" is as close to a ballad as it will ever get with CHILDREN OF BODOM, followed up by the super-fast "Roadkill Morning". However, the surprise on this album is the audacity of the Finns when it comes down to covers songs, especially with Britney Spears' very controversial "Oops I Did It Again" three years ago. At least, this time around, the band decided to go with a song with balls by picking Stan Jones' cowboy classic, "Ghost Riders In The Sky", originally made famous by the man in black, Johnny Cash!

It's clear that, during their fairly young career, CHILDREN OF BODOM have become one of the most charismatic bands in Metal. However as good as "Blooddrunk" is (in my opinion) it hasn't left the strong impression of the aforementioned releases. To say that this album is not worth the purchase would be unfair, however don't expect too much and you won't be disappointed.