IT’S been a long time since I’ve listened to some good old-fashioned Scandinavian metal and this album does not disappoint. However, it’s a far cry from the doom-laden nightmarescapes usually painted by bands of the genre. Instead, the Children of Bodom take us on a romp through a collection of covers and it is very obvious that they truly enjoyed themselves while putting together Skeletons in the Closet.

One would expect a metal band to cover some of the greats and that’s just what they do, with very credible, and listenable, versions of Iron Maiden’s Aces High, Slayer’s Silent Scream, Mass Hypnosis by Sepultura and Somebody Put Something in My Drink by the Ramones.

However, it’s the incongruous songs that really do a number on your mind. Who would have imagined a metal outfit pulling off a commendable effort of covering CCR, Pat Benatar or, odder still, Kenny Rogers? And yet the Children of Bodom manage to do just that, with a double topping of style and sheer talent thrown into the mix.

The album opens with Looking Out My Back Door and let me just say I never expected to listen to a banjo solo in the middle of a metal song! Definitely thumbs up for the Finns on this one. Hell is for Children by Benatar is next, and again, there’s no denying their talents. The Kenny Rogers song, Just Dropped In, is a tad unrecognisable once it has been given the metal brush.

Still, it’s an excellent album and the edition we have in Malaysia seems to be the British one as there are three different versions, each with a slightly different track listing and a change in one or two of the songs. Pick it up and look for the hidden track, a cover of a King Diamond song, somewhere on it, though you do have to wade through an interesting rendition of a Britney Spears number first. Great stuff, this!