Welcome to the 5th Diamhea Memorial Review Challenge!

Originally the "MA Virgin Reviews Challenge," this is a time-honored tradition among our reviewers here. Every spring and every autumn, reviewers are encouraged to spend a week writing and submitting as many quality reviews as possible, with the aim to focus on albums with no reviews so far (i.e. virgin albums). Every day, the reviews submitted and accepted are tallied, so that participants can see how they compare with one another and whether or not, altogether, we've been able to surpass previous challenges' totals. Previous challenges can be found here.

The challenge is named in memory of our friend Diamhea, a long-time contributor to this challenge and staff member here at Metal Archives, who sadly passed away on May 21, 2018. He was the first person to have ever written 100 reviews for a single challenge!

This challenge will run from Monday Jun 1 @ 12:00AM EST to Sunday Jun 7 @ 11:59PM EST.

The magic number to beat is 609. That was set in May 2009. It's high but we can beat it.
The second magic number to beat is 581. That was the total from the last challenge!

Challenge Rules

1. The focus is on virgin albums.
The only albums that count are those that had zero reviews prior to the challenge.

2. Every release listed on the main site is valid including singles, videos, boxed sets and so on.
However, please try to refrain from mass reviewing singles and 'best of' compilations for this challenge. That's lame.

3. Eligible releases have to be virgins at the beginning of the challenge.
Multiple people can review the same virgin. There’s no bonus for getting to it first, so no need to hurry – focus on quality instead.

4. Eligible reviews must have been written during the challenge.
Pre-listening to albums and taking notes is, of course, fine, but avoid stockpiling already written reviews in advance.

5. Value quality over quantity!
Everyone is welcome to participate, but keep in mind that the mods won't be more lenient during the challenge.

6. The challenge abides by the default time of the site (Eastern Standard time or GMT-5).
Please ensure that you are posting your review(s) within the right time frame in order for them to count.

7. The total number of reviews written will be tallied once a day (under normal circumstances).
Derigin (myself) will kindly do the tallying as soon as possible. Please don't nag him (me).

8. Stay cordial and respectful with one another.
Don't hijack this thread with petty arguments or whining. Remember that the mods are watching (and waiting)...

9. The only reward is our eternal appreciation.
The only prize is knowing that there is an album that previously didn't get any love... that now has a review to call its own.

Hall of Fame





What is SECRET SATAN? The gist of it is simple. People put their names forward. I randomly match those people with one another. They send each other a virgin to review. They both review one another's respective virgins for the challenge. SECRET SATAN is opt-in and totally optional to the review challenge. You have to put your name forward, either by mentioning it in this thread OR by sending me a PM on the forum. Once I have collected enough names, I'll notify people who their matches are at least a few days before the challenge starts. I'll notify through a forum PM.

Once matched, you must do the following:

Step 1: You will exchange with one another a virgin album for review.
It MUST be an album on this site with no reviews at the time it is shared with the other person.

Step 2: You are required to provide to the other person a link to the album you want him/her to review.
It MUST be available for FREE online and in either a QUALITY DOWNLOAD or QUALITY STREAM. No self-promoting your own albums, thanks!

Step 3: You will review the virgin album you received from the other person for the challenge.
Be prepared for the possibility that it may be well outside your comfort zone. Please remember this is done in good faith!

If you have any problems with the person you're matched with, let me know. I have spare albums for review just in case it doesn't work out.

Signed up for Secret Satan (CLOSED):


Have fun! Looking forward to your participation!

Sign me up for Secret Satan

I'll go ahead and sign up for Secret Satan. Hopefully I'll be able to get to it this time!

Yep, I'll do Secret Satan.

one more for Secret Satan here!

Not gonna beat my total for last challenge, but if this social distancing keeps up I'll have ample time to deflower all week. Hopefully others will as well.

Screw it, I'll give the Secret Satan a try this go around. I think this will only be my second time participating in it.

Nice, I just saw that incredibly stupid Purtenance reunion EP doesn't have a review yet. Noted.

Btw, three years after its release I still can't be bothered to check out that last Godflesh album, so next month someone please finally tell me what it sounds like. I'm waiting for it every Review Challenge.

Sign me for Secret Satan too.

I have a list of virgin trad doom and heavy to review so the usual...

We're back in business. No Secret Satan for me, but you have my sword.

I will throw in some reviews as well ... no Secret Santa though.

Add me to Secret Satan.

Throw me in the Secret Satan thing. Might be fun.

Secret Satan is now closed and matches have been notified.

We are one week off from the start of the challenge!

Might shit out a review or two, I'm sure there's some Nadja I've missed.

Yup, a fuckton of Sunn 0))) live albums now available too if you wanna hear the same stuff on 20 different nights.

Like the fact that the main page already has the notice up, hope people will notice.

Well, I might have the ability to churn out a good number of reviews - maybe 25 or so. While I will be working next week, I also broke my fucking leg and am now totally bedridden. Nothing to pass the time like a good 'ol review hoedown!

Well that sucks, how'd you break it? You did really well last summer too, so hopefully it's an opportunity and not just an inconvenience.

I have a handful of virgins, actually. I'll certainly contribute. Stille Volk and Galadriel are in desperate need for reviews now their official reviewer has stopped writing.

And no, I won't tally the scores (old, old members might get the joke).

I saw your name and immediately thought "righteous, now Deri can finally catch a break".

Well, this is definitely the ghost of Christmas past here, kinda fitting that this is the first time I've participated in the Secret Satan.

Haha, it's all good. I have it down to a science now. Nice to see you back, Sean16.

Less than 24 hours away!

GO GO GO.

I'm starting my first review now!

Well, thank you guys. I've not planned to become a regular reviewer again yet, these "come-back" things are always doomed to fail anyway, be it in music or anything else. Actually I was just writing a series of reviews for Misanthrope(Fra), adding new ones and completely re-writing old ones, as I have started to write an essay (in French) about the band and reviews are a good way to really get into the albums - trying to single out the most striking characteristics in each of them. I incidentally noticed it was the week of the Challenge, and here I am.

Just submitted my first review, starting with, guess what? Misanthrope

Surprisingly managed to write more than I thought today! I haven't really prepared a whole lot of albums, so I was expecting to do about 20 reviews or so, but maybe I'll have time for more. It's actually just cool to listen to a lot of new stuff and spend time with each one.

I've only managed a couple so far... still working on a couple of challenge ones, but in all probability, I'll just end up writing reviews for already-reviewed albums that I've been thinking about for a while. Pity that Odour of Torture and Whitechapel's acoustic version of Hickory Creek got hit already tho', I was actually gonna do those.

This will be fun to participate in. Too bad CHAIRTHROWER reviewed a lot of albums that I would like to have reviewed for this iteration.

Guys, you could review them too! Rule 3 says that they should be virgin albums at the BEGINNING of the week.

Daily Tally for Jun 1 2020
Total Reviews: 81 / 81
Total Virgin Reviews: 77 / 77
Percentage (VIRGINS/TOTAL): 95.1% / 95.1%

Participant List for Jun 1 2020
Total Participants: 35 / 35
Today's Totals per Individual:


Compared to the first day of the last challenge, we are down 34 reviews, though we have more participants. We are above average for both virgins and participants compared to the first day of the preceding three challenges, though, by roughly 10-20 reviews and 5-10 or so participants.

Congrats on gasmask_colostomy and Twisted_Psychology for being today's leaders with 8 reviews each!

Nice work, everyone. Keep it up! \m/

Great to see Twisted_Psych doing well here. Nice that GrizzlyButts has decided to do his seasonal review dump this week too, which might raise the numbers.

Absolutely going to take advantage of this during the home stretch haha.

Here's hoping I can keep some momentum going through the week. I've started a couple drafts today but keep drawing blanks.

Tell me about it. I woke up stupidly early, exercised in the morning, and now can't think a sentence out in my head.

Went grocery shopping, cleaned a bit and I'll try to give birth to some more now!

Did Mr. Goes Super Hard ever cover those Bill Ward solo albums or have those really been untouched all this time? Either way, I know what I'm doing today...

Chris, please don't.

I'm not in my early 20s anymore and for some reason I can't go on for paragraph after paragraph about how something is simply complete shit, I'm more inclined to just say it's complete shit and that's that, but that wouldn't be enough for a review. So yeah picking the new-ish Axegrinder album wasn't the best choice to try to get into the challenge. Guess I'll warm up with the demos.

Too late.

Daily Tally for Jun 2 2020
Total Reviews: 80 / 161
Total Virgin Reviews: 55 / 132
Percentage (VIRGINS/TOTAL): 68.8% / 82.0%

Participant List for Jun 2 2020
Total Participants: 29 / 46
Today's Totals per Individual:


Did not participate this day:



Compared to the second day of the last challenge, participants are up, but virgins are down.

We had 11 new people join us yesterday. Welcome aboard.

Congrats on Twisted_Psychology for being today's leader with 6 reviews!

We're doing well. Keep up the great work! \m/

heh wonder how GrizzlyButts will keep this up.

but ugh what's pissing me off is that the Spidrax coverage was meant to be a day-long thing for me, not three fucking days hahaha. Got other albums in the works for this.

I doubt GrizzlyButts will drop much else in this week since he tends to do more periodic mass drops. It would be cool if he contributed a little extra for the challenge but I imagine it'd be a bit much considering how detailed his reviews tend to be.