I've always loved Children of Bodom. Their first two albums Something Wild and Hatebreeder were albums of explicit guitar playing and beautiful melodies by the elusive band from Finland, but lacked a few things sometimes, in particular song structure. Follow The Reaper was different. Continuing with their Grim Reaper theme, which is to this day still the bands main figure of representation, every song blasts their way onto a stage of professionalism without losing the style they have favoured over the few years previously, yet opening new branches of song writing, veering towards possibly standard anthems. It starts with the title track, a voice ...  Read the complete review

I’ve always loved the Grim Reaper. From the humorous takes on the sinister servant of the afterlife in ‘Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey’ to the far less hospitable (but equally humorous) Reaper in Monty Python’s ‘The Meaning of Life.’ Children of Bodom had produced an album dedicated to this fantastic hooded legend: I had to buy it. It’s really good too. Children of Bodom are a fascinating band for metal fans, as they incorporate elements of different styles to come up with a quite unique sound. Most commonly labelled as death metal, or melodic death metal if you want to nitpick, these loud Swedes reached their musical peak with 2001’s ‘Follow the ...  Read the complete review