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Alexi Laiho (at a performance in 2019)
Photo:
RONI REKOMAA / AFP
He has received international awards for his guitar playing, including, according to the band's homepage, as the best metal guitarist on »Guitar World«.
But Alexi Laiho's health was not in the best for a long time.
This emerges from the message on his official Facebook page in which the manager of Laiho's last band, Bodom After Midnight, announced the death of the musician.
Alexi Laiho was 41 years old.
Laiho was born in Espoo, Finland in 1979.
He became known as the singer and guitarist of the band, which he founded in 1993 together with drummer Jaska Raatikainen, initially under the name Inearthed.
But already with the debut album, which appeared in 1997, the musicians had given themselves the name Children of Bodom.
The melodic form of death metal played by the Children of Bodom earned them great popularity.
In Germany alone, eleven of their albums entered the charts, starting with "Hatebreeder" in 1999. The sales success of the album "Blooddrunk" (2008), which not only entered the German album charts at number ten, but at five weeks was particularly great was placed in the top 100 for an atypical long time for a metal production.
Also untypical of the genre: With »Trashed, Lost & Strungout« the band even had a single chart success in 2004.
The last album by the Children of Bodom, "Hexed", also made it into the German top ten in 2019.
In their Finnish homeland it was the sixth album in a row that made it to number one on the local charts.
The band announced their breakup in November 2019, and the Children of Bodom gave their last concert on December 15, 2019 in Helsinki.
Alexi Laiho founded a follow-up project called Bodom After Midnight, three songs that have already been recorded are to be released posthumously.
Laiho's autobiography was also published in Finland.
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