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When Children Of Bodom is on tour in North America, you can bet they will play Montreal and the tour for their new album called Hexed makes no exception. This time they are playing the Corona Theatre (March 14th) and are accompanied by Summoner's Circle, Wolfheart and Swallow The Sun.

An early show is always a tough thing for a band, so it is only normal that there is not a lot of people in the Corona Theatre when Summoner's Circle get on stage. Their doom, death and black metal inspired music was heavy and slow for the most part. Fans were intrigued by them but were not really participating except a few in the front row. The musicians did their best to move, but with three drum kits populating the stage, it was hard to find an empty space to move to.

After a quick change, the band Wolfheart is on stage in front of a much bigger crowd. Making their third appearance in the city in less than a year, it is only normal that their fan base is getting bigger with each show. Even if the band does not interact a lot with the fans, Tuomas asked for a mosh pit a few times and was really pleased with the crowd response. The band did a great job in selecting songs from almost all their albums and that only made the crowd want a few more songs before they retired for the night. Hopefully the band will get a longer set next time around.

The Corona Theatre is now pretty packed when Swallow The Sun gets on stage to play “These Woods Breathe Evil”. The crowd got going immediately, but sadly, the band followed with three new songs that were way too slow to keep the fans interested in their music. Don’t get me wrong, “Upon The Water”, “Firelights” and “Stone Wings” are great songs, but they were just too slow compared to the rest of their songs. Select fans tried to do a slow mosh pit, but that idea did not last long, so they formed a line and moved from side to side to the rhythm of the music. The band finally put things into high gear once again with “Deadly Nightshade” and “Swallow (Horror Pt. 1)”, but it was too little too late. On the positive side, the lights were aptly used for each song, and Mikko’s voice was spot on, it was just a shame that the band was the odd one out.

After what seemed like an eternity for many, Children Of Bodom was finally on stage and playing their fast paced music. Even if the band is promoting their new album called Hexed, they only played three songs from it and played them during the first half of their set. They were well received by the fans, but as expected the older songs like “Bodom Beach Terror”, “Sixpounder”, “If You Want Peace... Prepare For War” and “Hate Me” got the crowd headbanging and thrashing way more than the newer songs. We immediately notice that Alexi is not in his best shape; he looks tired and his arms are so skinny that he seems ill, I do not know what has happened to him since the last time he played here, but he is mainly going through the motions tonight and his voice is not as powerful as usual. Daniel and Henkka are very much alive and are interacting with the crowd as much as they can during the whole set. As usual, they later talked to the crowd in French and indicated that they are always happy to play in Montreal. Once again, the fans loved every second of their set and showed their enthusiasm. Hopefully, Alexi will get better and the band will come back firing on all cylinders very soon!