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Bodom After Midnight, as many people already know, was formed after Children of Bodom split up but was very short-lived because of the untimely death of legendary singer/guitarist Alexi Laiho in 2020. This first EP would therefore also be the last.

I had lost track of Children of Bodom since 2003 or so (and, really, of just about anything melodic death metal as I had overdosed on the genre back in the day), so I wasn't really expecting much from this EP. The first few times I heard it, it really didn't do much for me except for the very good cover of Dissection's "Where Dead Angels Lie," so I put it aside and finally came back to it. I'm glad I did, as Paint the Sky with Blood really throws me back to the early days of Children of Bodom, before the scene was inundated with third-rate copycats (yes, I'm being generous with the third-rate). The two originals here are fast numbers of first-rate melodic death metal, the kind of songs that put the genre on the map in the first place, with a rather accessible style that's kind of the bastard child of power metal and watered-down death metal. It's catchy, melodic and memorable as fuck, but there's that aggressive edge that so many bands of the genre couldn't get quite right. A blast from the past is probably the best way to put it. Alexi's guitar work is excellent and his distinctive raspy growls (I've always found him hard to nail down) are instantly recognizable. The Dissection cover will make you want to reach for your Dissection albums for a listening session. Sticking to the originals, it's really a damn shame that we'll never see more material from this band, as this really had the potential to pump some much-needed know-how to the genre if the band had been able to keep going. It's a short one at just under 15 minutes, so get ready to hit that play button all day...