You might want the read the opening post again. The dates are there as well as in the thread title. The challenge lasts a week.

Ah I see.

Sweet. Nows the time to compile a list and get familiar with a couple of virgins

Gah! This is horrible. I've really lost motivation recently, with illness and being constantly busy, so I'm struggling to get into the mood to want to listen to music, let alone write reviews. I have started to get back into the swing of things, but not much. Worst timing EVER.

Damn, PS, now I have no competition. I already have 5 I'm planning on doing, with another two if time.

You were competing with me? I was planning on trying to knock out about 40. I have a list of about 32 I could do. COME BACK MY BELOVED MOTIVATION!

Oh noes 42? Damn, I was hoping it be like 12 - no I'm not too optimistic about the 8 I have planned.

I did 43 last time and was hoping to beat it, but it doesn't seem likely. I can't stop listening to bands which aren't metal either, which isn't helping my cause - Damn you Red House Painters and Jakob!

You can be my competition; I only plan to do about one a day but I probably won't live up to my own standards if the past is any indication.

Seems fair, I expected to only do one a day - with college and all. I dunno, somehow my motivation continues to dwindle. I hope I can do one a day, but now it feels more like one every other day.

Gah, the wait is killing me.

OK, it's time to start preparing for this. I've got a 460 km drive ahead tomorrow, and that means about 5 hours of peace to listen to stuff, so I want all of you people to keep your greasy fingers off any releases that are distributed in slim jewel cases. Those are mine.

Thank you for your comprehension.

Words of wisdom there. I've just realized the lab I'm working in will be closed for half of the next week, so I'll have plenty of time to dedicate to the Challenge. I'm currently listening to all my virgins, should definitely break my own record of six reviews.

Now there's this damn Symphony X review I've promised to write for The_Boss... I wanted to finish it before the Challenge, but I'm afraid he'll have to wait for the week after

By the way Perplexed_Sjel according to my charts you did 42, not 43 last time... Still an outstanding performance though.

In an effort to combat my slow review-writing speed, I am starting on my reviews for virgin review week now and mass-submitting them at the start of the contest. Seems like a few people here are doing the same. Hopefully I can get at least 20 reviews done by the end of this, though more would be great. Come on motivation, don't fail me like you did during all those more important tasks!

I don't think you can do that, Crick. The rules state you can't stockpile. The Sunday of you can start reviewing them, but no further than that.

Eh, damn. Guess I have to play by the rules.

EDIT: In the name of being fair, I've submitted the reviews I wrote before I noticed the little stockpiling rule.

Looks like I'll have to try to write 43 then!

I'm slowly getting some motivation back. I've been listening to some albums I want to review. Not looking forward to the negative reviews.

Edit: I hope I won't have Caspian on my arse the whole time this time round. He kept pushing me, unintentionally, to write more because he was catching up to me.

Starting the Sunday right before the challenge starts was something that I think came to be tolerated because that is what I did when I set the current record for the individual review count, and that was done mostly because during much of the week I didn't have time to review. Nothing that I've ever submitted goes back before that Sunday. I still basically do that because particularly on Tuesdays and Wednesdays I get really busy and have zero time to devote to reviews, even in the evening.

Now that's what I call integrity. If everyone in the army was like you, then we wouldn't have sex on duty

Well, thankfully I'd only written 3 reviews before I noticed.

Well see I'm not worried about stockpiling because I plan on doing Zarach Baal Tharagh reviews - and I got TONS of them to bash. Hoping to win the ZBT award

I'm just hoping the Alien Deviant Circus review I wrote will allow me to suck up to Azat and get something free.

I think your hope may be too high. If you were to get something free, then ZBT should send me his entire discography to finish reviewing ahah

Eh, I honestly doubt it'd get me something free. Maybe if they were still a demo band, but almost definitely not now. They've basically got two full lengths, seeing as the demo I reviewed is an hour and 11 minutes long.

If ZBT tries to send you his discography, agree. You'll have countless amounts of targets to practice your shooting skills on.

Well I'm sure you're just as busy as you say as well as hosting this challenge on your leisure so there is no rush, however I am still looking forward to reading your review and probably disagreeing with you

You really have that many ZBT releases to boot? Too much money? Murderous boredom? Masochism? Self-loathing?

No. It's as old as the very first Challenge, when we were just a bunch of idle reviewers and one day Byrgan came shouting "hey guys, let's write 100 reviews for albums which have not been reviewed yet!" There were no "rules" or whatever, except writing reviews for virgin albums. Some people said they would start writing reviews over the weekend but wait before the Monday to submit them, and no one found anything to say against this.

As there's nothing to win, I don't see why this tolerance should be removed. The "no stockpiling" rule had been added to prevent people from writing virgin reviews over six months and keeping them before flooding the site on the first day of the Challenge, spoiling all the fun (tell me, where would be the "challenge" there?)

I usually just ask people to be reasonable, and it works pretty well


The old ZBT joke will NEVER die!

I keep getting astounded by the amount of reviews written for ZBT. No more than 3 years ago, I would never had imaged that this project would get so much fame.
Perseverance always ends up paying off

Alright Fanfarigoule you're Luc Mertz, aren't you?

Well, three people kept pushing it again and again: CannibalCorpse, Droneriot/EntilZha and me ...

Well, Agathocles should get some additional coverage, too, and so should Nunslaughter...

Hmm... If I have the time to review my 22 virgins, well I have more but they are releases I wouldn't bother reviewing - ie demos or mcds of bands I despise - I'll beat my last challenge which was last may. I have a couple of newly received items, others I forgot I had and almost 10 Sabbat releases, hell they are so unreviewed they are an easy bet.

I've just noticed that I'm only 95 points off veteran status. Only 19 reviews... Hmm...

I'm fully aware of the rule against stockpiling, but it's acceptable to make notes about releases in advance, isn't it?

It's perfectly acceptable, yes.

Aside from schoolwork, I'm squeezing in all the reviews I'll be doing - which is around like 6 right now. I'll start writing reviews tomorrow night to give me a little breathing room.

Oh, this is exciting! The challenge begins tomorrow and I'VE FINALLY REGAINED SOME MOTIVATION! I've made a list of 40 albums I want to try to knock out and its growing. I doubt I could beat the 50 mark without killing myself, so I'll aim for the 40 mark once again, though last year I was simply aiming to beat 10.

Listening to a number of the albums I want to review ... Including this one, the exotic sounding 'The Universe Expands' by electronically influenced progressive metal band Dol Theeta. This record is so diverse, I doubt I'll run out of things to say too soon. EXCITED!

That very first challenge I started on something like Sat. or Sun. But since it has already been long since molded by now, I've been able to prepare in advance by setting aside releases. This one I didn't though, haha. I might only get a quarter of what I did on the last challenge, we'll see. I'll probably start early Mon on this one.

43 reviews in the last challenge? Damn, I guess I need to lower the expectations for myself ^^

No Zarach reviews this time though, no more torment to myself.

Alright, still a few hours left before the contest begins. For those who may have written reviews today, don't forget you'll still have to post them tomorrow for them to be valid. The mistake's happened EVERY time.

As far as I'm concerned I still haven't written anything, I've been away most of the weekend, and preferred concentrating on listening to my dozen of virgins. As Thursday to Sunday will be basically free for me, I should nonetheless be able to break my own record. EPs for the beginning of the week, full-lengths for the end!

The list will be updated once a day as usual. The format will be the same as before: it will be shortened to the last couple of days to avoid cluttering the board, and published in its entirety after the Challenge is over. The individual count will only be displayed after the very end of the Challenge, too.

I thank the mods in advance, hoping this edition will be another success.

*suddenly going berserk* FETCH THE VIRGINS! FETCH THE VIRGINS!

Which time zone do we run on?

I'm curious as well, just when you wake up Monday morning I guess.

I'm doing the ZBT reviews for the team. Next time I'll pass on the torture to another pleasant soul. However, I'll start writing this evening around 6 pm.

That's a good question, which answer I don't know. Forum time when you're unlogged is GMT-5. Forum time when you're logged in depends on what you've set, so GMT+2 for me, must be GMT+1 for you right? But all of this doesn't give us main site time, the only one of any importance... If I remember well there's a difference between forum time and main site time. Is main site time GMT? I know when I post my reviews around 10 am it's already far from sufficient anyway...

EDIT - which part of the UK are you from by the way? Just curious, as I worked in London a few years ago and regularly come back to England.