Children of Bodom will play Mystic Festival in Gdansk, with Cryptopsy, Bodysnatcher and Celestial Sanctuary announced alongside them.
The band exist again for one reason. Alexi Laiho died in 2020, and this year Henkka Blacksmith, Janne Warman, Jaska Raatikainen and Alexander Kuoppala put the band back together for a thirtieth anniversary tour in his memory, with Samy Elbanna of Lost Society taking the vocals and the lead guitar. Both jobs at once, which is the part nobody envies him.
Ten albums and more than two million records sold is what the surviving members are carrying into those rooms, and a festival booking means the tribute run has outgrown the theatres it started in.
Around them the festival has put three generations of extreme metal: Cryptopsy, whose Blasphemy Made Flesh is thirty two years old, Bodysnatcher out of Florida since 2014, and Celestial Sanctuary, who bring a new album in January.