Follow the Reaper

Children of Bodom have never been mind-blowing. They have always lacked depth and musical maturity. Everything enjoyable has always been so on a superficial level. And lyrically – well, it is downright embarrassing at times. Children of Bodom’s albums are the empty calories of metal – at first they taste good, but in the end they do nothing for you and sometimes leave you with an aching stomach. That being said, Bodom’s strongest album is without a doubt their 2000 release Follow the Reaper.

Follow the Reaper is solid melodic death metal. It takes influences from power metal and from thrash metal and combines them into a furious beast. It is fun – but it lacks real depth. At first listen a track like 'Everytime I Die' sounds great: it has head banging chugged riffs, and a squealing guitar solo that inspires you to whip out your meanest air guitar. But as you listen to it again you realize those chugged riffs sounds like a high school kid playing with his brand new distortion pedal, you realize the main melody could have come from a forgettable game of the NES era. It can be catchy, but almost in that annoying way that top 40 pop songs are.

Throughout this album the keyboards are almost as overdone as the pinch harmonics on the guitar. They are also pretty much ubiquitous throughout the whole album. Once you notice them, you can’t un-notice them. The vocals get the job done, but aren’t spectacular – and it doesn’t help that the lyrics are completely juvenile. Even still, Follow the Reaper is not the worst lyrical offender of Bodom’s albums (I’m looking at you Are You Dead Yet?). That being said the bass tone and drumming is pretty top notch throughout the whole album. The production is also quite good – almost too good.

The composition of the songs is also unremarkable – often falling into the standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure. When Bodom deviates from this formula it is usually in the form of pointless interludes or keyboard sections that sometimes breakdown into some boring guitar chugging.

It sounds like I must hate this album, but I really don’t. There are some great riffs and memorable songs. The strongest point on the album is probably the opening track ‘Follow the Reaper’ (if you can ignore the pointless spoken word intro). The intro riff is great and the transition into the first verse is enjoyable. It is full of fun keyboards and speedy guitar riffs. Unfortunately, the whole album is not on par with this song. Other highlights include ‘Children of Decadence,’ and ‘Kissing the Shadows.’ These songs are fun and make this album enjoyable. The other songs are just filler among a genre inundated with bands that shit out filler tracks.

The best thing to do with this and other Bodom albums is to take the best stuff and forget about the rest. There are many other bands out there that do what Bodom does, but better. Bodom is a gateway band into metal, once you are through the door, don’t loiter, move on to the good stuff.