So I come from much more of a death metal enthusiast opinion, but Bodom has always been my bro's favorite band. I quite enjoy most of their work. Whats people's consensus favorite album?

What are some bands that sound similar or downright copy the Bodom sound?

I saw the band on their first Finnish tour. Back in the day I always wanted to buy a tour shirt, but I remember they had nothing to sell. They played on almost the same level as people who came to see them. There were about 6 ticket buyers + similar amount of bartenders. I remember one (probably bought a ticket) who had his head on the table. Me and my then girlfriend were only headbangers. Great show they threw.

Their first four albums are absolute classics, with Follow the Reaper being my personal favorite. If you're looking for some similar bands, I'd recommend checking out Kalmah, Norther, Inearthed (a band they formed before changing their name), and especially Bodom After Midnight if you haven't already.

One of the most important bands of my adolescence (first heard them around 2004ish) and I still really enjoy their best work to this day. I think the first handful of albums, Hatebreeder and Follow the Reaper specifically, are among the most magical alchemical accidents out there. Just pure, unfiltered energy exploding in a billion different directions at once and having enough control to rein those kinetic whirlwinds into extremely catchy hooks. Their more melodeath era was much more hit or miss, with some albums just flat out sucking, but they recovered into a pretty okay middle ground by the end. They're not a perfect band of course, their lyrics have always been terrible for example, but they're one of the few bands that give me an extreme blast of nostalgia that I'm still confident I would love if I discovered them for the first time today.

As for soundalikes, man look at Finland in the 2000s and throw a dart. They had such an instantly iconic sound that there were oodles of bands that sprung up doing something pretty similar. Their similar artists tab here is probably loaded with great stuff.

I love their first four albums and quite like the last three. They had a bit of a dull period in the middle though, imo. Laiho was clearly an insanely talented guitarist and I did love the energy of the band. His loss was a big one for metal.

If you want similar music:
Kalmah, Norther, Brymir, Whispered.

Masterwork of a band. I think melodic death metal doesn't do them justice. I classify them more as symphonic thrash (even though there were no symphonies). Their riffing style was way more Slayer and Megadeth than it was Korn. The first four albums are of course the best, but Blooddrunk is not as bad as the internet thinks it is. Halo Of Blood is also decent, but I think people only like that because blastbeats. I could do without blastbeats in COB to be honest.

They should be remembered as one of the few bands from that 00s period that made it that didn't suck.

I love(d) them. I'm of the belief that Follow the Reaper is the greatest metal album ever, and their four album run from 97-03 is as good as any run in metal. Everything else after that is good to some degree (except Blooddrunk - that still has to win me over but it's slowly getting there).

It's musical candy... flashy but not really very good for ya in the end. I can kinda see why I liked them but it's nothing I need to listen to now really.

I never could get into them, except for a few songs here and there like Silent Night Bodom Night. I was always drawn to Kalmah more.

Edit: D'oh! Wrong thread.

I remember loving Something Wild and Hatebreeder back in the day. Follow the Reaper, for some reason, never clicked with me. My friends back then were going ape shit about the album, but I was disappointed upon its release. Then when Hatecrew came around, I was already over my 'CoB' phase. I did check 2-3 songs from that album and not being impressed. I've pretty much ignored the band afterwards. The shitty reviews for albums like Blooddrunk sure did not motivate me from checking what they were doing...

Feel exactly the same, I'd nearly put Hexed up with the first four, was their best album in 15 years

They're the type of band for me that I'll listen to despite never really liking his vocals, but at the same time I can't imagine anyone else doing them


Warmen are worth checking out, Janne Wirman's side project, similar enough to CoB but mostly instrumental

Have to admit they were my gateway to extreme metal. Having been through their discography many times, I love Hate Crew Deathroll above all. it's totally stupid but it knows what it is throughout. Great fun and some ripping riffs and memorable moments

SIX SIX SIX

POUNDER

oh no double post

how embarrassing

When I first seriously got into metal back in 2003, "Children of Decadence" was one of the many songs I accumulated early on that got me hooked.

And goddamn does that song still hold up.

'Hatebreeder' all the way for me. Followed by 'Follow the Reaper'

However, I did not like Hate Crew Deathroll at all and sold it. Didn't pay much attention to them after that anymore

the first cd i ever owned was a compilation containing deadnight warrior, and whenever i feel like listening to bodom, it's always the debut

I used to like them a lot when I was a kid (first 2-3 albums), but nowadays they seem to me so outdated. Tried to revisit them recently, and naaah; that simply didn't work.

Back in the late 90s and early 00s, when going to small gigs in small villages, literally every band of youngsters tried to be the new Bodom. They had a huge influence in Finland.

I listened Something Wild and Hatebreeder like hell. By the time of their third album I started to lose them. It was not a bad album, other music just started to interest.

I am very familiar with their first four albums, because I had a buddy in high school who'd blast them all the time while driving around town or hanging out at his house, but of those discs, I really only kinda-like Hatebreeder.

I say kinda because, while it has some GOAT-tier riffs & melodies, most of the solos are too shreddy + noisy for my tastes, and the group's general flow, when moving from one motif to the next, at such a breakneck pace, with lots of weird stops and starts in between, has always felt far too fragmented for me. Plus I don't like the way that they tend to play each song twice, before it just awkwardly ends, with little development or adjustments to the returning parts, and many weak closing sections.

The song "Downfall" perfectly encapsulates most of their musical problems: an undeniably iconic opening riff, leading to a quality but underdeveloped melody that gets repeated too many times, and is surrounded by a bunch of mediocre, out-of-place-sounding, stop-start parts, which never lead to a proper climax, and finish with an unsatisfactory ending.

"Warheart" is their best-overall and most-consistent-start-to-finish song, but even it ends abruptly instead of closing properly.

I don't see how the same mind who wrote the masterful, final flurry of scales that settles "The Nail" could, one year-and-a-half after, be content with so many of his songs just fizzling out in the final seconds like a failed firework fuse.

Then if you care about things like vocals, bass, and drumming, COB don't do anything special in any of those categories. Their drummer might as well be a metronome, their bassist is a root-note-holding liner footnote (who lies buried beneath layers of overly loud guitars), and Alexi's harsh screaming style has always been too monotonous plus badly lacking in range / dynamics.

I think Alexi Laiho was an elite melody & riff writer, who should have hired a dedicated singer, just done his band's backup vocals, and brought-in an equally skilled guitarist or keyboardist, who could have contributed more to the compositional process, to help make their songs flow smoother, evolve in the later bars instead of banally repeat, and get all the abrasive solo sections sounding as beautifully melodic as his riffs. I still greatly respect what he was able to accomplish on his own, but he really could have benefited from having a Player 2 in his band to train and spar with; the fact that COB artistically peaked on the second of their ten full-length CDs proves that.

I enjoy the first four, and I'm sure I'd like the later stuff enough if I dug into it. The whole power metal with blasting and screeching vocals was a cool combo. And I still think the intro to Needled 24/7 is one of the greatest metal intros of all time.

And seeing them live, even with Alexi being all screwed up in one arm for one of the show, they always ripped.

One of my favorite bands, I'll always regret the fact I never tried to see them live, Alexi was surely something special as a musician and the rest of the band were also hugely talented, both pre and post Kuopalla. Really dug the early stuff but the later stuff was killer too, they literally have no band albums in my opinion. Favorite albums would be Something Wild, Hatebreeder, HCD, AYDY, BD, HOB and Hexed.

They had their rough patches (mainly with the lyrics in the 2000s), but overall the band was always damn good. On top of that, they were (apparently) all great friends and genuinely good people. I find myself enjoying almost everything they put out, including the stuff people love to hate like Are You Dead Yet? In fact, possibly my favorite album by them was their second to last, I Worship Chaos which has some of their catchiest stuff and best production.

Speaking more to the individual instruments, the drums and bass do their job but not much outside of that. Tasty double bass and some good bass tone (when you can hear it). Alexi is a guitar god and rightly so, and their inclusion of synth is done well. The vocals are kinda a love em or hate em deal, but I find them enjoyable.

There are a lot of bands which are similar to them, too. Check out: Norther, Kalmah, and Starkill (stick with the debut for this band). To a lesser extent, Atavistia might be up your alley, but they're more Wintersun worship than anything else.

One of the most important bands for me. Still can enjoy the hell out of every album. The production of the first two hasn't aged well. I'm sure the consensus would be that Follow the Reaper is their best work. And composition-wise it's up there, but for me there's too much keyboard silliness going on. I prefer their heavier and less keyboard-oriented Hate Crew Deathroll and Are You Dead Yet. Very much looking forward to the upcoming live album.

Stuff that is truly similar:

Solerrain - Fighting the Illusions
Admire the Grim - Rogue Five (EP)
Chapter of Chaos (only released a song so far) - "Kill You Tonight"

Annoying kids band.

The nuance and depth of this reply is truly breathtaking.

Even going by this logic, them being a 2000s band means that most of their fans are in their thirties and forties now.

Won't that make it an "annoying middle-aged band"?

Agreed.

I’m going with “annoying millennial metal” myself, we aren’t middle-aged quite yet!

Dont listen to em much anymore, but i really loved them. Favorite albums are probably 'hatecrew', 'follow the reaper' and 'are you dead yet'. They scratch alot of itches, if you like the epic and sometimes beautiful side of melo death, but also aggresive and energetic thrash, i had punk friends who werent big into metal but dug them, they heard a raw punk edge to them. Then they also scratch that itch if you appreciate good musicianship or are a bit of a prog/power nerd with all the keyboard/guitar harmonies/unisons and whatnot. Sometimes they hit you with 80s hair vibes, or classical influences, or groove that might be associated with Pantera style music, they werent afraid to show their many influences

Those are some other things I always loved about them: Alexi and co. were always unapologetic about their influences and covered so much ground musically.

Insulting a band by insulting his fans is such a childish way of thinking.

Like some people here saying that people that liked Senjutsu are dumb or something like that.

SInergy is also a great recommendation for similar bands.

I imagine that album is long, and thinks it's smart.

Loved them since about 2007 they were a gateway to melodic death metal for me. And when i first saw their live dvd they blew me away, saw them once live too. I got addicted to hatebreeder after his passing fucking phenomenal album. There will never be another Alexi Laiho, he was a real hero of mine. Yeah lets take the time to remember that genius that sadly left us too soon two and a half years ago on that note. Theyre a really fun listen and many of the melodies get stuck in your head, dont know how on earth he did it. I would say the best albums are hatebreeder-Hatecrew death roll but really no albums are bad apart from Relentless reckless forever that was poor. The remaining members of the band are publishing a book soon too all about history of the band and talking about Alexi etc

Oh, and the tone Alexi captured on I Worship Chaos is one of my favorites ever.

I'm a big fan of COB and anything Alexi was involved in, which was a lot. I like all the records and even Skeletons, the record of all cover songs. The way they covered the stuff made me like the song even more than the originals. Live in Stockholm is one of my favorite live shows of all time.
Alexi was such an amazing guitar player and 'bazically' led the band to all the success they had, it's a shame the way it ended and he tried to keep going but as we know his body was just too damaged. I never got to see them live even though they came to a town a couple of hours from me and I'll always regret that because they always would hang out after shows when they could.
I listen to them daily, always have them on my show and really admire their ability, longevity and commitment to touring and playing live.
I might even say they were/are my all time favorite.

Sinergy was incredible but damn I hate(d) Kims vocals...... damn.

I really love Are you dead yet? It is a fantastic album. Is a lot more thrash/groove than their first ones which are a little bit more on the black metal side. Like other guys in the comments, I listened to them when I was a teen, they were a very famous band in metal magazines like Metal Hammer or Kerrang! so they were one of the first extreme bands that I listened to. I'd say that they, Amon Amarth and Arch Enemy carried the flag of european melodic death metal in the mid 2000s, at least on the commercial side of things.

Rest In Peace Alexi Laiho, pride and son of Finland.