If you're into Finnish metal, Tuesday provided a conundrum of depressing proportions.

MONA REEDER/DMN

Singer-guitarist Alexi Laiho took the spotlight Tuesday night for Children of Bodom.

Do you go the tried-and-true, borderline Euro-pop symphonic route and check out two of the most successful acts of that breed, Nightwish and Sonata Arctica, at the Palladium Ballroom? Or do you break out the earplugs and eyeliner to push more extreme boundaries by attending speedy-flashy-angry upstarts Children of Bodom at House of Blues?

With Nightwish and Sonata Arctica, you knew what you were going to get: soaring, fantastical and carefully crafted pop metal straight out of a Terry Brooks fantasy novel. From a critical standpoint, that's boring.

Children of Bodom was more alluring because it's current, dynamic and dicey. Its most recent CD, Blooddrunk, is among the year's notable metal records. But word was that the band's recent sets had been underwhelming, loose and trite. Whoever supplied that word wasn't exaggerating much.

CoB is plainly a vehicle for singer-guitarist Alexi Laiho; no one else is allowed much of the spotlight. Though there's no denying his band's intensity and power onstage, that's all there is: one speed (fast, like Pantera grafted onto Dream Theater); one singing voice (growly, vodka-rotted yelling); one banal way to address the otherwise stoked crowd (they deserve some personality, Mr. Laiho); and one bag of tricks that's filled with licks and little else.

The only reason CoB was bearable past halfway was because memories of the primary opener, North Carolina's Between the Buried and Me, were still fresh.

One can say plenty about the band's unfair screamo tag, the challenging songs (only acts such as the Dillinger Escape Plan regularly trump it technically) and the incessant, we'll-play-with- anybody-anywhere touring ethic. But its closing turn through the 14-minute sonic biopic "White Walls," off its masterful 2007 album, Colors, should have convinced enough of the 750 fans that Finland hasn't become metal's Valhalla quite yet.