Children

The s in "Sessions" is important here. Contrary to certain claims, the Lost Sessions CD does not represent that Holy Grail of '60s aficionados and collectors: the elusive "lost album." What it is, though, should be plenty good enough for most fans of the era's music. The compilation pulls together recordings made during several trips to the recording studio by Eternity's Children between 1966 and 1972, and if the sum of the album doesn't necessarily trump its individual parts, The Lost Sessions is nevertheless a fascinating hodgepodge encompassing a couple different lineups of the group and at least twice as many interesting shifts in musical style. Roughly the first half of the album was recorded by the first, six-piece incarnation of the band, led by singer and keyboardist Bruce Blackman…

John’s Children were the quintessential cult 60s Mod/Psych band, controversial, sharply dressed and subsequently the stuff of legend. The band were fronted by Andy Ellison (later with Jet and Radio Stars) and boasted Marc Bolan within their ranks during their short life. "A Strange Affair" - for the first time - boasts the entire John’s Children output between 1966 and 1970.
The package includes: Two singles for EMI’s Columbia label: ‘The Love I Thought I’d Found’ and ‘Just What You Want - Just What You Get’. Four singles for The Who’s label Track Records: ‘Desdemona’, the legendarily withdrawn ‘Midsummer Night's Scene’, ‘Come And Play With Me In The Garden’ and ‘Go-Go Girl’…

The band that eventually became the Children began life as a pair of competing garage combos on the often-overlooked San Antonio rock circuit in 1965. The Stoics came together in the spring of that year. Guitarists William Ash and Rufus Quillian were upper-middle-class kids while singer Al Acosta, drummer Sam Allen, and bass player Michel Marechal all came from the city's predominantly Hispanic northeast side…

Depending on where you vacation, the last thing you might expect from an album by a band named after a Finnish lake made infamous by a multiple homicide and titled Halo of Blood would be for it to be fun. Strangely enough, though, that's exactly the feeling that comes through on Children of Bodom's eighth album, which finds the Finnish band returning to deliver another dose of dazzlingly technical melodic death metal. Sure, the album is filled with lots of dark moments and macabre imagery, but listening to it is a bit like watching a fighter plane demo, which is to say it's loud, thrilling, and when enjoyed properly, it's likely to result in some hearing loss. Filled with big riffs and high flying solos, Halo of Blood is an album that's hard not to headbang along to…

With the presence of brutal riffs and keyboards, Finland's Children of Bodom sounds at times like Fear Factory fronted by a hardcore screamer, especially on their 2005 release, Are You Dead Yet? The group's fifth studio album (which was co-produced by Children of Bodom and Mikko Karmila, the chap who produced their previous outing, 2003's Hate Crew Deathroll) shows the quintet plowing full steam ahead, as the venom continues to bubble to the surface throughout. But the group also has an unmistakable prog metal edge to boot, as the tricky interplay between guitarist Alexi Wildchild Laiho (who also doubles as vocalist) and keyboardist Janne Warmen on "Punch Me I Bleed" certainly brings to mind Dream Theater…

Boy, whoever thought that technical metal was dead as a doornail during the mid- to late '90s has been proven dead wrong. Just a few years after this aforementioned era of "metal no man's land," technical metal has spread like a virus, via bands that share both an appreciation of the extreme aggression of Slayer and the technical proficiency of Iron Maiden. A fitting example of both of these metallic styles colliding as one is Finland's Children of Bodom, and especially their 2008 offering, Blooddrunk. All the ingredients from past Bodom releases are present once more - Goth keyboards, guitar acrobatics, and vocals that sound straight out of the torture chamber. These lads sure can play their instruments, as evidenced by such intense metal blasts as the title track, "Smile Pretty for the Devil," and "Tie My Rope"…