Review: "Relentless Reckless Forever" By the Band Children of Bodom

Finnish metal band Children of Bodom sort of redeemed themselves with their 2011 album called Relentless Reckless Forever. I had mentioned that in 2005 they had made a transition from the neoclassical melodic death metal albums of their early years and had become a hybrid mix of death and thrash metal.

What is the musical style on this album? It is once again very heavy death metal and we even see a start of a bass line to the song Shovel Knockout. The song is about a scenario where serial killers are on the loose going after their targets. But I hear a sort of modernized version of the band what they would have done with the riffs back in 1999. That’s a great idea to include such a great modern riff.

The song Roundtrip to Hell and Back starts out slower which would have been unusual for Children of Bodom even in 2003. The song is about someone’s pleas for help as they are trying to get back to a place that was once heaven for them. They feel confined in a very bad situation and they are asking for a way to get out of it. The title track of this album features a loud, heavy growl by Alexi Laiho before the melodic riffing kicks in and there is a part of the song that sounds like a song on 2000’s Follow the Reaper album. The song is about someone that is content on being ignorant and bad. The next song called Ugly really speeds up and then there is a repetitive punk style riff. The song is about someone that has lost his mind and this event has become so ugly that he even acknowledges this. It is better to have a healthy mind and feel beautiful rather than being ugly. The next song is called Was It Worth It? Alexi Laiho’s voice sounds like it is drowned out and too aggressive. I haven’t heard much of the albums after this one but it can be said that Children of Bodom is not the same band that I heard from 1997 through 2000.

Even with the awesome fast song called Northpole Throwdown, this album will never be as good as their earlier albums. Relentless Reckless Forever would not be that much better than what they did in 2005 so this album gets a 79 out of 100 points. The reason that it does not score in the 80’s or 90’s is because Alexi’s vocals have gotten a little worse and there are too many so-so or substandard moments in the album.