Alexi Laiho, longtime frontman of the enormously popular Finnish metal band Children Of Bodom has died. On their website, the band reports that Laiho died at home in Helsinki last week and that he’d “suffered from long-term health issues during his last years.” Laiho was 41.

Laiho started playing guitar at 11. As a young teenager, he formed Children Of Bodom, then called Inearthed, with drummer and childhood friend Jaska Raatikainen. After a series of demos, the band released their debut album Something Wild in 1997. From the beginning, the band’s sound was a bright, clean, arena-ready take on the Swedish style of melodic death metal. Children Of Bodom were ferocious but hooky, and they always showcased Laiho’s blazingly crunchy guitar shredding.

Children Of Bodom toured and recorded relentlessly all through the ’00s and ’10s. They released 10 albums, most of which topped the Finnish charts, and they reliably tore up the metal-festival circuit. The band released Hexed, their final album, in 2019. Laiho also worked with side projects like Sinergy, the Local Band, and Impaled Nazarene. In 2015, he also led 100 guitarists in a composition called “100 Guitars From Hel.”

In 2019, Children Of Bodom announced their breakup, and they played their final show in Helsinki in December of that year. Last year, Laiho, who no longer had the rights to the Children Of Bodom name, started a new band called Bodom After Midnight. The band was booked on a few festivals last year, but those festivals were cancelled in the midst of the pandemic. Instead, Bodom After Midnight played three shows at Finnish clubs in October.

Below, check out some of Children Of Bodom’s work.