Band:	Grave Digger
Album:	The Reaper
Style:	Speed metal
Release date:	1993

01. Tribute To Death
02. The Reaper
03. Ride On
04. Shadow Of A Moonless Night
05. Play Your Game (And Kill)
06. Wedding Day
07. Spy Of Mas?on
08. Under My Flag
09. Fight The Fight
10. Legion Of The Lost (Part II)
11. And The Devil Plays Piano
12. Ruler Mr. H
13. The Madness Continues

My first Grave Digger album, I didn's like it in the beginning, I didn's like it for years. For some reason I cannot explain I have to worship it now as early 90's masterpiece.

Indeed when I first got this album I had quite some problems with liking it, because it was so strange to me that instead of singing you hear someone kind of screaming and growling most the time, though this isn's a death or black metal band. But I felt uneasy with this kind of metal and so the story goes I put the record in drawer where it should stay for years. When I got it out again saying to myself: ?Maybe it's not so bad?? I was surprised! Really, it got better from song to song, no there were real highlights, it was cool, it was great and still is. Two of my personal favourite Grave Digger songs: ?Under My Flag? and ?Fight The Fight? are featured on ?The Reaper?. Many songs like the opener and title track ?The reaper? and the second song ?Ride On? have this driving, furiously attacking double bass. If not, they have these chainsaw-like riffs as ?Under My Flag? and if not this they are kind of half-ballads with acoustic parts and ?clean? vocals (like ?Legion Of The Lost Part II?), all with mighty rocking sound that drives the demons back to hell. Other really cool tracks are: ?Shadows Of A Moonless Night? and ?Play Your Game And Kill?. Of course, there is something to it that makes it worth ?only? a 9/10, it is two songs that I don's like as much as the others ?And The Devil Play Piano? and ?Ruler Mr. H.?, the latter I really dislike.

That's it about the opening-chapter of a great decade in Grave Digger's discography (from Reaper to Rheingold), since I don's like their 80's stuff, only the few re-recorded songs that made it onto later albums as bonus tracks, such as the song ?Heavy Metal Breakdown?.
Those who are already fans shall take this as recommendation to complete their collection, those who want to get into Grave Digger's music should start with the Middle Ages Trilogy!