Just today I realized that I have the status of "scribe" and I also recently discovered that I am in the top 100 members with the most reviews written on the site. My first review dates back to November 2018, although I didn't start writing reviews consistently until October 2020, in these 3 years and some writing, I have noticed some improvement in my reviews, this has been given both by practice but I think mostly by my improvement in various knowledge that I did not have previously. I have asked for feedback only a few times, and they have been by private message, because until now I was ashamed of the idea of exposing myself here for fear that someone would tell me that my reviews are not good. It's not that I myself think my reviews are bad, otherwise I wouldn't publish anything, but I have always considered myself inferior as a writer compared to many people who have written and still write here. The feeling of shame has disappeared and I want the feeling of inferiority to disappear as well, I don't want to get stuck as a reviewer and I want my quality to only go upwards. So for the first time I humbly ask for all possible feedback to evolve as an author and as a reviewer.

Thank you very much.

Okay, I've been thinking about this since yesterday and I think I know what to say. Just for the record, I don't consider myself a perfect reviewer by any means, so any criticism is not meant to diminish your confidence, just that I know the only "feedback" that lets us evolve is usually negative.

Reading a few of your more recent reviews, I agree with your opinion that you do not write much musically about the albums you comment on, but more about your reaction to the music in question. On one hand, this means you are sometimes a bit short on actual musical description (quite an important aspect for this website) but that you often arrive at the review with an overall perspective on the album - a "take", sometimes a hot take. Another writer who does this a lot is BastardHead, so that when I read you guys I don't always know the exact profile of the album but I do often have some insight into what it's like to listen to it. For the 2 reviews I've just seen, Cóndor and Morbid Angel, you absolutely have a take or a point about both of them, but the review lacks much evidence for the points i.e. the examples really don't go into detail. It's especially clear to me that you barely mention any of the songs from those albums, and when you do it's only in a surface manner, like mentioning a couple where you think Trey's solos are great. The way you explain is not a problem, but the evidence is sometimes a bit flimsy.

The other thing that struck me is that your use of English language is good and mostly quite natural, but your sentences read as very Spanish sometimes. (I am going from your profile that you are Spanish, and this would confirm how I'm reading your syntax. I have Spanish and Portuguese colleagues at Metalegion whose reviews and articles I edit sometimes.) When I say "very Spanish", I mean that the sentences just sort of flow freely in a string of loosely connected phrases, and that you don't seem that fussy about how long they become. Because you use few logical connectives in these sentences (because, so, but, however, despite, while, as well as, moreover, etc) it occasionally makes your points a bit vague, since the steps of an explanation may not be crisp and clear enough, or it may only relate directly to your personal experience and have no basis for other listeners. In a word, it's not a very analytical style of writing, though it comes across as personal and genuine. In a related issue, your reviews end up with a few spelling mistakes that could probably be caught by better proofreading. There's one in the Morbid Angel title, which as a review queue mod is the only part of the text I can't edit...

That said, I think you've improved a lot in the last 2 years or so. I went back to look at your MA 'Covenant' review and that reads poorly beside your new one for 'Domination'. It's less focused and the syntax is waaaay worse (the last paragraph is one short sentence and then one sentence of 245 words, I'm not even kidding), as well as not having such a clear point to make in general. So hopefully my observations are somewhat useful, but keeping on writing and writing will also have great benefits I'm sure. Everything is moving in the right direction.

I've been reflecting on your feedback since I read it and I think that the two aspects you mention are more related than they seem, let me explain:

Effectively I am from Spain, and although english is a mandatory language in the school, the level is quite low, so I was practically self-taught thanks to the internet on my teen years, until I finally went to an academy from 2018 to 2020. My level of English is, therefore, decent enough to be able to "survive", both spoken and written, however I don't have a good academic level of the language, and not having been able to travel much outside my country, I don't have a day-to-day level that allows me to speak it naturally. So there is the first problem, my descriptions are vague and simple because I lack fluency in the language to make deeper descriptions and so I have to resort to other types of approaches where I can express myself more, this is something that I have also improved in part by using this forum daily where I have learned a lot about how to talk about music but I still have a long way to go.

This problem with the language leads me to, on too many occasions, when I think about what I want to say about an album, I end up thinking in spanish, and then I try to translate it in the most correct way possible what I thought, this has the consequence that you have mentioned, that my sentences read "very spanish", but it has another one that I have realised by reading you, and that is that when I think in spanish what I want to say about music I end up using a very simplistic language again, because many of the terms and definitions that I think in spanish don't have a direct translation or I use slangs that only makes sense in that language, resulting always in a poor version of what I have in mind. What would be the solution to this? Well, probably just keep practicing my english and naturalizing it as much as possible, maybe it's time to read books in english instead of translated ones and more things like that.

Anyway, thank you very much for your comment Gasmask, you have made me think a lot and, far from feeling demotivated, I feel the opposite, I feel like writing more and better.

I get you man, I can't imagine how tough it is to be writing a metal review in your second language and getting told that you still have a long way to go. I've lived in China for 9 years and could not write a metal review in Chinese, no way, haha.

Something that might help you with this translation issue is to start from a more basic approach when you write a review. Instead of thinking of the review's first sentence in your head, maybe make a list of points (in English) that you're going to cover, and then add flesh to each point. Consider using very simple and direct language for this list, and then improving the expressions later when you read it back. I know this will take a bit longer, but actually I guess that your fluency in English is already good, and because it's not that difficult for you to write in English you're finishing the review easily (in terms of writing) but perhaps not saying everything you intended (in terms of points and analysis). Just an idea.

Of course reading lots of other reviews will help, since you are always adding to your music vocabulary and getting familiar with how other people express their ideas about music. Read slowly and question things that don't make sense, this will also help you see mistakes others are making.

Actually my third one haha, spanish is not even my first language as I am from a region in the north of Spain with another official language, so I am doubly influenced by a latin language.

Your point about having a few ideas beforehand is something I do most of the time these days, but what I don't do and what I should is to take some time once the review is finished to edit it, improve aspects and add more content that may be missing, as you say I will be slower but that's not really relevant.

Again, thank you for your feedback.

Posted my first proper album review in 4 years for Nithing - Agonal Hymns and would like to receive some feedback on it. I'm generally quite happy with how it turned out which is why I want someone else to read through it so I could find something to improve upon. I took my sweet time with it as well; I wrote most it back in November but returned to it only at the start of this year with a fresh set of eyeballs to iron out any issues with the text flow. Any kind of feedback is appreciated, from grammar to the general structure of the text etc.

Hmm, given that you're giving 100% you do fairly well not to go over the top with praise, but you could still tone it down a little in places, since some repetition starts to creep in. The writing itself is good, nothing glaringly obvious to find fault with, although I notice there are some grammar/word mistakes left in the first paragraph. If you want it to sound more exciting and less formulaic, you could mix up your sentence lengths more often, and also maybe don't separate the drums, guitars, and vocals into different paragraphs, since this can come off as lazy and doesn't represent the overall effect of the music. Personally speaking, I wouldn't use italics for all of band names, album titles, and song names, since it should be easier to tell the difference between them in the text. Overall though, it's certainly a good review, not merely a passable one.

Created a review of Starbound Stories that was rejected for being too "track-by-track". Would like some thoughts on how to improve. Review is posted below:



"Starbound Stories is the side project of Dragonforce singer Marc Hudson, but fortunately most of this album sounds nothing like Dragonforce. Although I'm a big fan of Dragonforce, the change in genre is really satisfying, and it gives Marc a chance to excel in his own style. It's been awhile since the last Dragonforce album (4 years, although we're getting an album in a few weeks), but it would be a letdown if Marc just released 10 more Dragonforce songs as a side project. This side project gives us what you want to see from Marc.

The songs, for the most part, remind me of anime. They're the type of songs you'd hear in the opening or outro, or perhaps during a music sequence. I haven't really watched much anime, but Marc's music gives a good taste of the magic involved. The keyboards are sparkly and vivid, and are quite honestly my favorite part of the album, courtesy of Shaz D (Marc, if you're reading this, bring this guy in to fill the hole left by Vadim. Trust me, he can fill it). The guitars have some good melodies, but mostly abstain from solos, although The Siren has a great guitar solo courtesy of Marc Hudson. I knew he could play guitar, but I didn't know he was good at shredding. But the keyboards are still the reason the songs sound so incredible. Speaking of Marc...holy crap, his voice is incredible. He doesn't always get the chance to show off his voice on Dragonforce songs, but here his voice is pushed to the limit, especially on the title track. His voice is able to draw you in, and when it soars, you feel the power behind it. The lyrics give off a good anime vibe, but they don't feel overly cheesy.

Onto specific songs:

Astralive is weak. Like, it feels as though Marc just recycled a rejected Dragonforce song and forgot to bring the solos. It feels too generic, like any other power metal song. I have no idea why this was the leading single, because when I heard this, I thought "Oh great, Marc has to go solo to give us more Dragonforce". I'm glad Astralive was the weakest song, because if it was one of the strongest ones, I'd be giving this album a much lower grade.

The Siren is really good. This song was the second single, and it changed my mind about the album. When I heard this, I thought "This is different. This sounds good." I said before that the keyboards were some of the best parts of the album, and this song is the prime example. We get a mix of acoustic piano, sparkly synths, and background strings, and the synths sync up with the guitar during the second part of the solo.

Freedom Heart did not need harsh vocals. It threw off the entire pace of the song. On another note, Dracula X! did not have good harsh vocals, they were drowned out by the musc. Ryoji's screams should have been on Dracula X! where they actually fit.

Call Of The Martyrs is the most Dragonforce song on the album. 8 minutes long, fantasy lyrics, great guitars, and an epic solo by Stevie T, who may be kind of annoying as hell someitmes, but he can shred.

The ending track (sung in Japanese) confirms beyond any doubts that Marc is a certified weeb. I mean, making an entire anime-sounding album could have been a hint, but this confirms it.

The ballads (Stars, Swansong) are incredible. For me, the biggest problem with Marc-era Dragonforce was the ballads. ZP was incredible with ballads, and his voice fit perfectly with the style. Trail Of Broken Hearts, from my all-time favorite metal album Inhuman Rampage, is the perfect example of what a metal ballad should be. Silence from Reaching Into Infinity was a good ballad, but it lacked the Dragonforce touch, and it didn't sound enough like a ballad, but rather a slow song.

Stars is the first ballad, and it sounds very Celtic (makes sense, since Marc is British). The vibe of the song is like walking through an Irish valley in the springtime, and it's tied together with a beautiful electric violin solo by Mia Asano. Swansong is a more mournful song, giving the vibe of walking through a rainy autumn street to lay roses on a friend's grave. It would have likely benefitted from a guitar solo, but it sounds great otherwise. These two songs have some of the best lyrics on the album.

I wasn't sure about Marc doing a solo album at first, but this definitely exceeded my expectations. Herman and Sam need to play some of these songs at the next Dragonforce shows, and if not, Marc better get the chance to play these songs himself."

This is the section where the problem lies. I think you could have made a paragraph with a sentence about how the album can be generic and without good solos, such as astralive. The paragraph could then go on to mention how Call of the Martyrs and The Siren are actually great and arent generic like Astralive.

Then a paragraph about the vocals, you could expand that idea into 3-5 sentences. like one about the fantasy lyrics, one about the harsh vocal misplacement, etc.



The two ballad paragraphs can be collapsed into 1, and the outro is fine. This was pretty close to good except for the track by track section that dedicates 2-3 sentences to each song. It may seem like there isn't a difference between talking about the album and talking about each song, but talking about the album's qualities and citing specific songs to back up that opinion makes for a more engaging read. You did that in the other reviews you submitted today, (great job on those) which is probably why they had an issue with this one

Yeah, more or less what aidane said. It isn't *strictly* a track-by-track (as in, following the tracklist order), but the format is still pretty much "track x is ..., track y is ..." and so forth, which is something we don't think is very interesting for the reader. I think another user summed it up perfectly on another thread:


Of course I think everybody is "guilty" of mentioning and describing a few tracks this way, every once in a while, but here it's about almost every song. The fact that most of them also make up paragraphs on their own doesn't help.

I'd also concur about the DragonForce reviews – those are correct examples of how to describe the whole album, using specific songs as references for what you say.

I find really annoying that I been rejected 3 times in different reviews and I can't get them posted no matter what I do, what I write is for the moderators "TOO WELL WRITTEN!!!!!!!!! IT SEEMS TO BE THAT IA IS THE AUTHOR OF THE REVIEW!!!! .I can't stand it anymore. Please

can you post them (or at least one of them) so we can give you advice

Are you sure you can deny having used AI in the first place? Because I've seen a huge amount of fake reviews by now, and yours shared lots of similar traits with them. I mean, I'd be happier than anyone else to be proven wrong, but even the way you have written this post here, by comparison, makes me a bit more suspicious about it.

Be careful if you are using some kind of grammar software too. Some of them make the writing too exact and AI-like.

I use QuillBot but I carefully check, since they can't censor/replace cuss words and duplicate words.

Thought I'd post this in chat before submitting to get a bit of feedback.
This review was requested by Metal Lair so had a deadline which both Gasmask_colostomy & TheBurningofSodom gave me some advice on.

Aborted - Vault of Horror - 70%

As creatures of habit, it is often easy to feel content with repetition and familiarity. We know what to expect and can find solace in homogeneity. This often applies to the music we listen to, something that follows a distinct style or sound that can make one feel gratification. Originality and personality can be and usually will be sacrificed for an indifferent but pleasing sound to feed this appetite.

Belgium's Aborted have always been a band that were "style over substance" as in whilst offering nothing new to the death metal spectrum, do add a direct-on-target sound that utilizes the influences from Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse & Carcass that quenches that grim death metal thirst. I very much doubt Sven ever set out to redirect or reinterpret the genre but to just play brutal and intransigent music which has been accomplished album after album.

"Vault of Horrors" is an album comprised of drummer driven death metal, it is as fast paced and as frantic as any other current death metal sound. I am in no shape or form calling Aborted generic, but the riffs presented here are formulaic, lots of tritone power chords and Tremolo littered with syncopated chugging that draws a good amount of influence from the current deathcore sound sprinkled in with technical showmanship and the typical melodies used in most extreme metal. Not riff devoid by any means, however it is very paint-by-numbers in terms of songwriting and with the clean and very modern production does not help with differentiation from other similar acts. This is not a critique but more so an observation of the current extreme music scene what with bands using the same instrument brands, tunings and amp pre-sets, it all has a great sound HOWEVER leaves a lot more to be desired in originality or ingenuity.

One of the main selling points for this release was that all 10 tracks (not including the bonus song) feature a well-known guest vocalist. I have often always found that the most unique feature of Aborted's music was frontman Sven's vocals. He, alongside other belching greats Frank Mullens and George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher, have very distinct styles & sounds. I have heard songs he has guested on without knowing and was able to pick that it is him which should display my reverence for his voice. Kicking the thesaurus aside and just stating it - he's an awesome vocalist. Everyone else is great too. However, hearken back to my point on the production and writing, these songs could have been written by the guests bands themselves. Eric from Despised Icon does his vocals over a slam riff and isn't too different sounding from his own band, same with Oliver from Archspire, his section could be either Aborted or Archspire and this echoes for most guest spots here. I get it, all these bands are touring brothers, and it helps bring in new fans so yeah, it is understandable that the album would feature them.

In short, this album is a solid slab of death metal; did you really come in expecting more than that? Songs like “The Shape of Hate”, “Death Cult” & the grindy “Insect Politics” still batter your ear drums effortlessly. Solid but not stellar, safe but not stagnant.

I think you did a great job, the only line that stuck out to me was:

I think this line is casual in tone, whereas the rest of the review is professional. You could remove the "I get it" and the "so yeah" and end up with a better sentence. Great work otherwise though

I'd say it's a good one. Maybe the description of the individual songs arrives way too late in the review, and most of all: having not heard the album, based on your review I'm honestly not sure whether you're claiming that every song sounds exactly the same (as the third paragraph seems to imply), or that every song mimics the guest vocalist's respective band (in the fourth). I'm seeing names from Archspire to Fleshgod Apocalypse to Cryptopsy so I guess it would be a wide array of songs if the latter were true, right?

I'm not usually one to comment about formal/informal language since I may tend to mix up the two as well, so in regard to what aidane rightly pointed out, I'd say that it can also depend on the site/zine's general style – if all the other writers stick to some kind of formal writing in one way or another, might be convenient to rein in the colloquialisms, otherwise perhaps you can leave it as it is.

This part I think deserves some comment, and that's because the bulk of it is pretty strong, as the other guys have written already. It does get a bit informal and even lazy in places (wrong capitalization of "tremolo", that caps-lock "however", "I have often always"), but actually I'm thinking more about this style of second-guessing yourself about how much to praise and how much to criticize. The second, third, and fourth sentences in the upper paragraph all begin with you partially taking back what you've already said. I do this a lot too, because I'm often undecided how strong my critical feeling is, though in a publication it's better to come out and say what you think. Sure, use a mitigating sentence to say that this trait is generally true of other modern death metal, but don't dilute your opinion just because it strays into the negative. That's the kind of thing that readers really want to see, the stuff that lets them know how you actually feel. On the whole, a solid review though.

Really appreciate the feedback from all 3 of you.
Will do a fine-tune on this one and submit it. Do agree with what TBOS said about the similar sounds ie Aborted sounding alike to FGA etc will have try and maybe be more specific or at least try to aknowledge that not ALL bands sound alike here.

Used word document to spell-check, dunno why it capped "tremolo" but I'll sort that.

I wrote several reviews and they were rejected because I described the album track by track. Then I wrote this review and received this message "This is a good start with your review, but it needs more substance and content towards describing the music of the album. Although you've described the music briefly, you should expand on it. Remember that it's not enough to say that something is "good" or "bad", you have to explain why' So I need help

THE REVIEW ;

One of the most notorious bands on the french extreme metal scene, has just released its new album Ekbom via Season of Mist. Offering 36 minutes of pure brutality, Benighted doesn't joke when it comes to reaching the pinnacles of the extreme.

The album opens with a dark soundscape, evoking the best atmospheres of horror movies from the 80s. So, from the first seconds we dive into the brutal and relentless grindcore/death metal that french band offers us. All instruments are perfectly complemented by the screaming ferocious vocals of Julien Truchan, who never lets up the intensity. The few moments of calm offer a relative respite before the brutality takes over again, as in the track Scars.

The diversity of the rhythms and cadences is incendiary. Unexpected short melodies intertwine with devastating riffs and relentless drumming, all delivered with incredible intensity. On the vocals side, the performance is at its peak, particularly on the track Le Vice des Entrailles, where Julien displays all his power. The guitars truly stand out on track Metastasis delivering a potent blend of catchy riffs and impressive technical prowess. What an impressive vocal diversity on the track A Reason for Treason, which leaves you speechless.

In conclusion, Benighted's new album is a real pleasure for fans of grindcore and death metal. it offers a rich and varied palette of sounds, while retaining the brutal identity of the band. Truly, this new album is a perfect display of brutality for those moments when you need to drown out a bad day at the office !

Looks like it's on the right track, to be honest. You're probably getting rejected this time because it's quite short and also because some of the adjectives are not really substantiated. For instance, you use words like 'brutal' or 'extreme' quite a lot, and these obviously do describe the music, but when telling the difference between metal bands they need a bit more to be specific. Compare to other similar bands maybe, or mention what kinds of technique the singer is using, that will give the reader a better picture of the album. You can be more specific by just describing more, using a few songs as examples, making comparisons, giving more precise musical terms - any of these are okay, but you probably need more than one. To put it a different way, you need to add more to say how the band is doing what they are doing.