Follow the Reaper

There isn’t much that I can say about this album that has not already been said, but I still want to review it since I think it’s one of the best metal albums of all time.

The album is perfect in every way imaginable. It has amazing riffs (basically every song aside from "Northern Comfort"), great solos ("Bodom After Midnight", "Everytime I Die"), effective use of keyboards adding a lot to the album’s atmosphere ("Mask of Sanity", "Children of Decadence"). The production is awesome, too, which is what I always appreciate in music. You can hear the drums, the keyboards and the vocals (brilliant as always) very clearly. At the same time, the album does not blatantly copy the "Hatebreeder" sound, but instead, improves certain areas of it. For example, the guitars sound a little bit rawer and more aggressive (the album is generally louder and more energetic than its predecessor), which suits it perfectly, since it focuses more on speed and emotion than on atmosphere and does not have many standing out songs like "Downfall" (besides "Everytime I Die"). The latter is probably the only thing worth of criticism about the record, but I think the remarkability of riffs and solos in this particular case outweighs a slight lack of musical diversity.

Lyric-wise, "Follow the Reaper" is also decent. The majority of the album’s lyrics aren’t straight forward hatred and anger and have a certain mysterious feeling to them (just like the lyrics of other CoB albums). My personal favorites in terms of lyrics would probably be "Children of Decadence", "Everytime I Die" and "Kissing the Shadows".

My favorite thing about this album is its consistency. The first 4 songs (almost half of the album) are straightaway bangers, while the rest are at least good ("Taste of My Scythe", "Kissing the Shadows") and at most – incredible ("Mask of Sanity", "Hate Me!"). The only songs that I feel are slightly weaker than the rest are "Northern Comfort" and "Kissing the Shadows", but they are still enjoyable and thus I won’t be very critical of them.

So, from my humble experience I can say this is one of the best and most remarkable albums of all time. A melodic death masterpiece, an album that will never be forgotten and a wonderful way to get acquainted with the genre. Also, a perfect soundtrack for... nearly everything.