Children of Bodom
Follow The Reaper

THE REVIEW

After the decidedly stupid "review" of Mayhem-Darkthrone, to make up for it to the thousands and thousands of people who loudly demand new daring grammatical evolutions from their favorite scribbler (oh dear, I'm losing my way... so, subject... mmmm yes I would say it's there... at most we add a random one... like "the clay demonstrates being...") here is a new and beautiful review all for you.

Many pointed it out as the album of commercial compromise and a sellout to a decidedly more profitable market, but personally, this Follow the Reaper (a jab at Korn's one) doesn't seem at all inferior to its two predecessors, Something Wild and Hatebreeder.
Even though the riffs are starting to resemble each other a bit too much, if one does not pay excessive attention to this flaw that afflicted, albeit more mildly, even its predecessors, one finds in hand a truly beautiful album, carefully studied in balancing more melodic parts borrowed from some power score with slightly heavier parts, comparable to a Nordic-style melodic death, Swedish or Finnish it may be.

The production is really excellent even if many have complained that it was too good for an album by a band that is supposed to play extreme metal. Unfortunately, the black outbursts of the red debut have practically vanished apart from a few faint traces here and there, for example in the central break of Taste of My Shythe, leaving room for very catchy and easily assimilated solo riffs.

The best tracks are certainly the aforementioned Taste of My Shythe, the duo Mask of Sanity-Northern Comfort, and the hypnotic mid-tempo Everytime I Die, a more than decently successful experiment.

Special notes for the two(!!!) minutes of final solos in Kissing the Shadows, orgasmic, and for the cover.
It is incredible the ability of the Children to make albums with covers the same color as the album... close your eyes... think of a color and for this Follow the Reaper, blue will come to mind, for Hatebreeder green/black, and for Something Wild red.

I recommend this CD to anyone approaching extreme metal for the first time... they won't be disappointed and can soon head towards more challenging horizons... who knows?!?... Iron Maiden ;-)