Featured Musician: Petri Lindroos

His friends call him Pete. His fans call him Pete. So yeah, I call him Pete. See, Pete is the co-founder, and was the vocalist and lead guitarist, of the melodic death/power metal band Norther. He also joined the viking folk metal band Ensiferum in 2005, following the departure of Ensiferum's then vocalist and guitarist Jari Mäenpää, filling in the exact same roles of his predecessor.

Petri Lindroos are long-time friends with former Children of Bodom guitarist Alexander Kuoppala and it was the latter who helped Norther out a great deal when the band first started out. I s'pose that would be a huge reason why Norther's style was heavily influenced by C.o.B at first and received criticism for being copycats. But Norther has since shaped their own musical style, and Pete has played a huge part before and after this transition.

As part of Norther, Pete has played a character in the Finnish movie "Vares 2 - Jäätynyt Enkeli" and their songs "Frozen Angel" and "Reach Out" were featured as well. He is also fond of playing at gigs half-naked despite the fact that he doesn't have a sexy muscular body.

Sadly, as of March 4 this year, our beloved founding member left Norther to fully concentrate on Ensiferum, now adding war paint to his naked torso during live performances and maybe a sword hanging on his hip. *sobs* Don't get me wrong, I like Ensiferum, both during Jari's time and Pete's, but I think its a damn pity for Norther, and if you've heard Pete's replacement, former Imperanon vocalist Aleksi Shivonen, sing with his whiny high-pitched shrieks, you'd agree with me too. Sigh..

Below is the music video for "Frozen Angel", which features scenes from Vares 2.

Norther will never forget you Pete, and your awesome words of wisdom:

Yeap that's right folks, eat bunnies, not shit.

Featured Musician: The Jonas Brothers

His visage described great discountenance.

As Vortex continued stabbing relentlessly at the voodoo replicas of the infamously famous pop trio from the company of a fallen man now in cryogenic stasis - all in the hopes of saving the beloved genre of the underground music community - his efforts were in vain however, for there is nothing to stop the impending musical revolution that is to come. 

"Stop it!" Laiho snapped.

With a frown caressing his brows interminably these days, Laiho looks undoubtedly tired, tired from trying to battle this unstoppable force known as the Jonas Brothers Mania. 

"It's pointless you fucker! Save your energy for better things, like spreading your black metal thingamajig around... ... and I am trying to think of a better way of killing those afro fags, so I will need some SILENCE." Laiho snarled. 

"Whimper" Vortex.

"But but but Laiho sir! Thy unholy god has blessed thou with a vision that voodoo dolls are the way to go about in doing exactly that! He said that it will work if I embedded a strand of their hairs in the dolls!" Vortex cowered. 

"And since when have you done that yet you long-haired, gothic clown?" Laiho glared down Vortex.

"Oh.... right." Vortex scratched his head with his overly-black nails. 

"Heh, I guess this is what happens when you use up too mucha ya grey matter up there trying to think up friggin' complicated, smart-ass three word album names, eh?" Slash butted in.

"Oh shut your gaping hole you ninny, do you have any bright idea on how to prevent the oncoming epidemic?" Laiho sighed.

"Well... yeah. Ah'f got one or two bright ideas here. How 'bout we thrash them in a guitar duel >:D" Slash laughed.

"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you." Dimebag chimed in.

"?!?!?!?!?!" Laiho.

"?!?!

 Praise ye above~ Ye heavenly Ghost..." Vortex quivered.

"Ah, unless ahm seeing things here 'cos of me boozing too much last night, ain't this the dead Dimebag Darrel right in front of me?" Slash squinted at the ghastly apparition through his curtain of locks.

"Right you are." Dimebag said.

"Holy shit, this is freaky. Now I know what I'm gonna name my next kick-ass album with CoB... The Lazy Reaper!!" Laiho smirked.

"No you don't. No wonder people say you are just about as creative as AC/DC when it comes to naming stuff, Alexi. Anyway... give it up people. This trio are d-a-n-g-e-r-o-u-s. I mean they are not even human I reckon! Ol' Cliff Burton down there, told me that he tried killing 'em in their sleep one night, but guess what? They looked him in his ghostly eyes, and fucking told 'im to tell them that he loves them and to comfort them that everything would be alright!" Dimebag exclaimed. 

"... Father~ Son~ and ho-oh-ly Ghost. Ah-men~" Vortex continued his worshipping. 

"Man, that IS freaky." Slash said.

"Wow, they are the gayest fags I have ever seen then." Laiho said with a green face, looking as if he wanted to throw up.

The television suddenly flicked on.

Suddenly, a cacophony of ear-bleeding tunes burst out of the speakers. 

"Holy fuck! Its the Jonas Brothers 3D movie! Run for it!" Dimebag screamed, and promptly went right back to hell. 

"Argh!!!!!" Vortex shrieked, running out of the door and towards Sunday school... for the first time ever. 

"Man, I didn't know there was anyone that could sound worst than that dickwad Rose." Slash grimaced, and took off on his bike.

"This is insane. I think I have to get some help from Detroit Metal City..." Laiho growled.

A few decades later, metal has since completely disappeared from the world of music. Not leaving a single trace of itself behind, the Jonas Brothers took advantage of the situation and conquered the world, defeating even the last superpower in the world, the USA, by annihilating her troops completely with their brain haemorrhage-ing tunes. And thus, it was inscribed in the annals of music history that metal was finally defeated by pop.

Not!

Happy April's Fool!

Featured Musician: Alexi 'Wildchild' Laiho

There actually isn't any need to introduce this guy. If you don't know him, you wouldn't be on this site. But due to extenuating circumstances, my last post was more than a month ago, so I've decided to celebrate my return with something (or someone, so to speak) big. And because a recent movie to hit cinemas share a certain similarity with the Children of Bodom frontman..


I sense a conspiracy..Notice how they have the same hair? XD

Actually, there's nothing special about this guy. He's just one of the best guitarists around. Having several achievements credited to his name, such as the title of World's Best Guitarist of 2006 according to Metalhammer magazine and being among the top 50 fastest guitar players in the world according to Guitar World magazine, as well as being the co-founder, lead guitarist and vocalist of the increasingly popular Children of Bodom, this shredder and growler's reputation precedes him.

Now C.o.B is one of the few bands Shadori and I both like, and while Janne Wirman is generally my favourite member (I got a thing with 'boardists), one can't deny the prolific success and musical quality largely stems from Alexi, since he writes most of the music and the lyrics. His involvement in other projects, such as Sinergy and Kylähullut, are also not bad, particularly the extension of his partnership with fellow C.o.B member and guitarist, Roope Latvala, in Sinergy.

The guy quite lives up to his nickname that notably comes from the song Wild Child by W.A.S.P. I mean c'mon, he learnt to drive before he took up the guitar, and if the quality of his playing is any measure of many years he's been tugging the strings, that was a damn young age (10 actually, he took up the guitar when he was 11). Not to mention the suicide attempts and whatnot. But what he once said about his band-mates remains one of my favourite quotes to date, and I like to use it to describe my friends: "These motherfuckers aren't my friends.. They're my brothers." Or something like that, you get the gist of it.

A coupla things you might wanna notice about Alexi in this video featuring him and Janne Wirman: obviously his awesome guitar playing, using his teeth to do it at around 2.30, and the number of times he says 'fuck' and the other grammatical versions of it every time he opens his mouth. Mitä vittuu, Laiho?

Featured Musician: ICS Vortex

Shagrath may be the iconic voice, Silenoz the creative shredder who comes up with most of their work and Hellhammer, as his name suggests, is one helluva hammering drummer. But when it comes down to it, what sets Dimmu Borgir apart most from their fellow black metal peers all comes down to this guy.

Simen Hestnæs aka ICS Vortex, apart from being the bassist and clean vocalist for Dimmu Borgir, is also the vocalist for Code and Lamented Souls. He has also lent his voice to Borknagar and the avant-garde metal band Arcturus, playing a pivotal role in the latter's last album, Sideshow Symphonies, which gained much critical acclaim and is arguably one of the best metal albums of 2005.

Vortex plays the bass guitar very competently, but his singing is just.. woah. Its hardly what you'd expect from someone in the metal scene I'd say. 8 minute-ers like Dimmu Borgir's Kings of the Carnival Creation get turned into epic gems just by that 30 odd seconds of his singing at the 4.30 second mark, its how his singing can just define a song. Looking just at his 198cm hulking frame, with that long wild blonde hair of his, who would expect a soulful voice from such a man huh?

According to wikipedia, Hestnæs gave himself the name ICS Vortex as a kinda joke on Garm, whom he replaced as vocalist in a band twice, as one of Garm's aliases was Fiery G. Maelstrom, and Icy S. Vortex is like a complete opposite of that: fiery and icy, maelstrom and vortex. That's not a really cool reason for an alias, but I'm personally partial to the word vortex so I think its a pretty awesome name either way =D.

Anyway, a video tribute to this guy from youtube is below, encompassing vocals from several of his songs from the various different bands he is/has been in, including the part for Kings of the Carnival Creation. A bit disgruntled there weren't really any from his Borknagar days but ah well Allehelgens Dod I Hellveds Rike kinda makes up for it I guess. Its a rather cool video as well, showing him in some performances, and also in some personal moments.

(Photos from photopit.com)