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Two years later "The Divine Conspiracy" and after a lineup change Epica returns, with an album very well structured and with lyrical themes much more positives: while "The Divine Conspiracy" dealt with religion wars and prejudices, "Design Your Universe" tells you straight forward that you are free and free to project the world you live in, if you want this strongly enough. This is the prominent message on the album, explained with many sub-themes such as Tibetan and Maya cultures, quantic physics and near-death experiences - all of these expressed with poetry: "Don't forget you are able to design your own universe".

Everything begins with "Samadhi", an introduction both lyrically and musically; but is "Resign to Surrender" that explains the overall style of the album: as for the voices we could listen to choirs, growling vocals and female vocals (both clean and opera), as an Epica trademark, but the instrumentation is changed, we listen to a more extreme sounds with many death metal influences, a more guitar-oriented sound that anyway doesn't forget the symphonic part. The album goes through some very good songs (like "Unleashed", the first and gorgeous single), but the real highlight of the album is reached with "Kingdom of Heaven", a five-part track with both extreme parts, opera choirs and symphonic parts and even an acoustic part that the listener could relate to Opeth's style.

The album continues with songs that are just as good as the precedent ones: the best song on this second part of the album is ballad, "Tides of Time", that will melt even the more iced hearts with the beautiful performance of Simone Simons (that improves her vocals on every album). After some more heavy tracks, such as "Semblance of Liberty", being the hardest track on the album, and a last ballad, "White Waters" with the guest vocals of Tony Kakko of Sonata Arctica, we find the title-track, "Design Your Universe": another long track with many different sounding parts and perfect vocal performances.

This is "Design Your Universe": the best Epica album yet, and with no doubt one of the best album 2009 gave us - so get ready to design your own universe through the excellence of this musical experience...
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Review Nr. 1:

Mixing black metal with some melodic folk influences might not sound very innovative and unique. The whole field has been covered by a wide array of bands, beginning with Bathory themselves. But that doesn't make "Daudningekvider" any less impressive. Stylistically, this is your typical thrashy, guitar-oriented black metal, complete with shrieked vocals, but based around very melodic, beautiful guitar hooks. Eljudner do not try to impress with insane speed or technicality. Instead, they keep their songs rather simple, and let the melodies unfold. The drums are somewhat simplistic and never pick up too much speed or try to steal the show, yet they are varied enough to remain interesting throughout. This works especially well in "Liivet af mig render" and "Svartgaldr", where the drums retain a driving groove that keeps the song going even at their calmer moments. The bass guitar, as usual in most black metal productions, is not noticeable, and it is clear that the focus lies on the guitars. Those are just as icy and raw as you would expect, but still sharp enough to make every riff clearly audible. The vocals play more of a supporting role, remaining quiet for long passages, but working exactly as they should when they are there.

From these descriptions, you could guess that Eljudner is just another generic black metal band, like there have been millions before and after. Indeed, their style can hardly be called original, but that's not the point. The focus lies solely on the melodies. Take "Naglfar Seiler I Rimkold Natt (Hevn)" as an example: The guitar begins with a slow, melancholic melody that clearly shows the band's folk influences. Then the drums kick in and it gets noticeably heavier. Still, the music retains that kind of melancholy that makes it sounds almost magic. The guitar use dual melodies here, which makes the song feels even more sorrowful. The song continues like that, featuring clean vocals and guitars later on. This culminates in a very calm, spoken word passage, where a lone electric guitar plays quietly in the background, creating a beautiful atmosphere. Fortunately, none of this is overdone, and the band avoids becoming pathetic (a problem that many bands in this genre have to face) by returning back into the song with a fast-paced, somewhat aggressive blastbeat section. But this isn't overdone either, and you don't have to expect merciless brutality. Even here, the guitar work is still highly melodic, and the feeling of epicness isn't lost. The song continues more uplifting than before, creating a strange contrast to the almost sad feeling before. All of this fits together perfectly to create one monster of a song. And while this is easily the best one on the record, that doesn't mean the rest is weak.

"Liivet af mig render" and "Svartgaldr" are the fastest tracks on the album, sharing an almost identical groove. Highlight is the bridge section from "Svartgaldr" that draws some inspiration from classic heavy metal á la Iron Maiden. Both shift between thrashy and melodic sections effortlessly. "Der Hammer Og Kors Motes" is a slow epic, starting with a cheerful melody and building up as it progresses. "Dodsvigd" starts with an acoustic guitar pattern, before the full band kicks in for probably the best moment on the whole record. The way the acoustic and electric guitar contrast each other is simply beautiful, and is very hard to describe. Later on we get some more classic metal melodies that sadly disappear immediately not to be heard again for the rest of the song. The last song on the EP is "Gardmillom", and it's also the only weak point of the record. It starts very similarly to the previous track (in fact, it's too similar) and continues with spoken word and electric-acoustic-interplay like we've heard several times before. But this time, it fails to make any impression. The whole song feels like an interlude that is missing a proper context. However, it does work as an outro to the CD, and brings the record to a fitting conclusion.

With Daudningekvider, Eljudner somehow managed to make an incredibly solid and consistent record. Even after repeated listen, you won't feel the need to skip a song, since they are all equally great. Eljudner might not be innovative or technical, but their masterful use of melody makes this a stunning record nonetheless.

Review Nr. 2:

Musically, Cryptic Wintermoon sound a lot like Dimmu Borgir in their transitional phase. That means bombastic keyboard arrangements and melodic, not-quite-black-metal guitar riffs. All this is meant to sound very epic and melodramatic, and in most cases, they succeed. That doesn't automatically make "The Age of Cataclysm" a good album, however. Cryptic Wintermoon's biggest problem is their lack of consistency. The first half of the album is quite solid, featuring enjoyable, catchy hymns. Their songs might not have a lot of depth, but the melodies are likely to stay in your ear for a while.

Opener "The Abyssal Spectre" is quite atypical for this album. It is quite fast-paced and sounds almost thrashy with its tremolo-picked lead guitar riffs. The keyboard plays a supporting role here, mostly used for enhancing the mood in the slower chorus section. Unlike the rest of the album, the focus lies solely on the guitar. In terms of general structure however, this is quite a good example of what's to come: Instead of the complex and unorthodox song structures black metal is known for, Cryptic Wintermoon adopt a classical verse-chorus-verse approach. Of course, that makes the music even catchier, which is just as it should be with music like this, but it also removes a lot of depth, leaving an impression similar to pop music: It tends to get boring after a while. Fortunately, the first few songs avoid this by simply being so damn catchy that you can't resist even the tenth time around.

Tracks 3 to 5 are related thematically and musically, telling the kind of Sword and Sorcery tale one would expect from the music. Here the keyboard becomes more prominent: It introduces each song with a lengthy solo section, and acts as both lead and backing instrument in the actual song, just as the guitars do. This technique is very well balanced and makes the cliched lyrics actually sound credible instead of laughable. In fact, the music sounds a bit like mid-era Bathory here, especially on "Fallen Kingdoms", which is blown up to almost epic proportions, clocking in at seven minutes. If they had sticked to that epic tale-telling kind of music for the rest of the album, this could have gotten quite a high score. It's not necessarily deep or meaningful, but it's damn catchy and a lot of fun. Instead, they do the worst thing they could have possibly done: They write a ballad. Even worse, "When Daylight Dies" is the most cliched and kitschy kind of ballad you could imagine, complete with acoustic guitars, singalong chorus and whiny lyrics. The problem with the acoustic guitar probably lies in the sound: Instead of sounding warm like it should, it remains just as cold and plastic as the keyboards.

Several songs in the second half are quite lacking in terms of lyrics. Dracula-like bloodlust ("Black Moon") and grief ("Angels Never Die") are not the kind of themes they can portray well, and most of the time, they sound like some neo-romantic gothic metal band using a vocabulary of approximately 50 stereotype words to fit the emotion they want to portray. Musically, the tracks are a mixed bag: "Blood of the Dragon" is another epic like the ones we've heard before, and the only one with acceptable lyrics. "Winter of Apocalypse" is probably the strongest track, due to the varied mid-section. "Black Moon" and "Angels Never Die" both could have been great tracks, but they are ruined by poppy singalong choruses. The remaining two songs fall flat on their face, simply because they do not sound as epic as the instrumentation might imply: they're simply forgettable. They don't do much wrong, apart from the lyrics, and probably would have worked well if used as filler tracks between the better cuts, but since they both come directly after another, they tend to get very boring.

As long as they don't get too mainstream musically, and stick with war themes lyrically, Cryptic Wintermoon can be very enjoyable, if a bit generic. But their excursions into kitsch and melodrama almost ruin the record at times, and due to the lack of memorable riffs near the end, I tend to turn the record off after the first few tracks. If you're into the more melodic type of Black Metal and don't care about theatrical lyrics (or don't care about lyrics at all), you could give this a shot, but if you're looking for something original, stay away.

Trash metal. - 0%

Like every form of music that has existed since the first caveman banged two sticks together in a rhythmic fashion and marveled at his invention of the beat, there has been a lot of bad music in metal. Some of the music is bad because it is dishonest and commercial, devoid of anything resembling integrity. Here you have your sellouts, your Sepulturas, your Dimmu Borgirs. Some music is bad because it is soulless and lacking in inspiration, going through the motions without a spark of life--think later Iced Earth, or Thomen Stauch's half-assed attempt to resurrect Blind Guardian in Savage Circus. Some music fails because it employs terrible ideas, like every band that decided oinking like a distressed pig was "sikk". But Thrash Queen are on an entirely different plane of existence. This is a band that has nothing going for it at all--no skill, no inspiration, no songwriting, no integrity, not a single goddamn thing. There is bad, and there is Thrash Queen. Nothing else comes close.

Thrash Queen were a (alleged) thrash metal band from New England whose big gimmick is, as you may have guessed, being composed of women (a gimmick that would be used far more successfully by Meanstreak, a band most notable for three of its members marrying members of Dream Theater and for being much, much better than Thrash Queen). It's hard to expect much from a gimmick band, especially a gimmick band that don't even seem to understand the genre they're supposed to be playing (the band picture is 100% glam), but Thrash Queen do not have a musical bone to share among all four of their bodies. After only a few days of trying to learn the bass guitar, fumbling through "Freezing Moon" using half-remembered techniques I learned on the upright bass way back in middle school, the sounds I made with my piece of shit $200 Squier bass were more musical than this.

What riffs exist are simple patterns of quarter note power chords (like the obnoxious 0-4-3-4 riff that kicks off "Chasing the Dragon" and sounds like it came from a particularly bad Myspace black metal band), mallcorish stop start patterns that somehow managed to predate mallcore by twelve years, and midpaced open-string chugging. In short, Thrash Queen do not thrash. The only thing remotely thrash about this is the drumming, extremely incompetent "snare polka" bashing whose tendency to wander out of sync with the music is only partially obscured by the atrocious production (more on that later). The vocals are a faux-masculine whiny screech, like an imitation Kai Hansen with a sore throat and a range of about half an octave. Some of the melodies are simple enough to resemble nursery rhymes, composed entirely of only one or two tones. One wonders why, despite the whole girl power gimmick, "Princess Die" (yes, that's what she calls herself) tries so hard to sound like a man. As for bass, there's a low-pitched thrum following the guitars. I think that might be the bass.

The production is bad, and not good bad, not raw bad, but BAD. This is worse than Nattens Madrigal, worse than Death's demos, worse than most concert bootlegs. The drums are buried under a layer of distortion and static that only affords the listener a vague impression of the beat. The guitar tone is one of the weakest I have heard on a heavy metal album, like the one on Megadeth's Killing is My Business (which was already pretty wimpy) but much thinner. The vocals wander in and out from behind the guitars, like the world's shittiest rays of sunlight dappled through the world's shittiest trees, and pan from left to right or right to left for no apparent reason. Sometimes a channel will just cut out for a second and come back. This sort of sound wouldn't be acceptable on a demo; on an album it's revolting.

"Manslayer" is a miserable opening track, alternating between an extremely simplistic descending arpeggio that is used for around 80% of the song. Yes, a single bar riff of four chords composes most of this song, and most of the rest is stop-start open E chords like you'd hear in an Evanescence song. There's a solo that resembles every other solo on this album, a mindless stream of very slow shredding (I know that sounds contradictory, but the solo is really that bad) with the occasional basic pentatonic lick thrown in wherever Vikki Stone felt like it, played very sloppily. Like most of the songs here, "Manslayer" does not have any real ending, it just kind of stops in its tracks because the band decided that the song should stop.

The second track, "No Way Home", starts with an actual riff, an actually rather decent Sabbathian motif that makes you think that perhaps the album might not be as bad as you thought. Don't be fooled; it quickly descends into mindless eighth-note chugging like a cut-rate ripoff of "Exciter" (where's the thrash already?) that occasionally reverts back to the intro riff, which becomes more and more tired each time. The vocals are especially nursery-rhyme-ish here, the melodies barely qualifying as such. Thrash Queen do not seem to understand the idea of verses, choruses, and song structure, and simply seem to switch back and forth between the opening riff and the chug riff whenever the mood strikes them.

From here the album seems content to repeat itself, serving up a structureless mess of half-assed speed metal chugging and attempts at melodic hook riffs (usually tired NWOBHM castoffs) that fall flatter than a Kansas highway. "Retribution" and "Unwed Mother" are virtually identical, and the only way to tell that "Retribution" has ended and "Unwed Mother" has begun is to look at the playlist because the riffs are extremely similar. Some of the songs attempt a "Whiplash"-like stomp, but the result sounds more like a metal version of an oompah band, especially with the shitty production making the snare almost impossible to hear so all you get is THUMP A THUMP A THUMP A THUMP. Each song takes a rhythm and tempo and follows it to the end, with little distinction between different parts of the song (don't even ask for a thrash break). "Prayer for the Ship" and "Tired of Waiting" attempt to break the mold a bit by basically being (terrible) NWOBHM and...I have no idea what "Tired of Waiting" is trying to sound like, but ultimately go nowhere and do nothing worthwhile, each taking only a couple of musical ideas and repeating them relentlessly--"Tired of Waiting" uses the same stop-start open-string bash for the verses, the chorus, and even the fucking bridge, managing to be so repetitive that the only real change in the music is a "gear change" modulation in the last few reptitions of the chorus.

The least horrible song on the album is "Now You Ain't Got Me", which has a couple of bona fide thrash riffs (!) that sound like riffs that Dave Mustaine threw out during the Killing is My Business sessions for sucking too much. Sure, they suck, but even cheap knock-off Megadeth is a vast improvement upon pounding on open E until the listener's ears bleed out. Also Mustaine-like are the bursts of guitar soloing thrown in here and there, which are no better than any of the album's other solos, but are welcome for breaking up the monotony. They still can't wrap their minds around the idea of using a different riff for the chorus, and it isn't one-tenth of any actual Megadeth song, but "Now You Ain't Got Me" is slightly less awful than everything else here.

"Chasing the Dragon" is nothing but a rehash of "Manslayer" with a different opening riff (that stupid Myspace-BM one I told you about, and it is actually somewhat memorable in its sheer awfulness and the way it is pounded into your head over and over). Was this an attempt at symmetry? Are a band this completely worthless even capable of coming up with such a concept?

This album is shit. Complete fucking shit. It is the worst thing I've ever heard that has ever been classified as metal, and yes, that includes I Wrestled a Bear Once. It is interesting to note that an unscrupulous record label called Metal Enterprises in Germany later illegally used the Thrash Queen name for a recording made by a bunch of the label's studio musicians. The result was a mishmash of generic guitar riffs, listless drum machine banging, and a woman with a hilariously thick German accent shrieking gibberish on top (LET'Z MEK LOAVE IN ZE REFRIGERATOUR!), with songs looped over and over so that they pushed 9 minutes each, and it was better than this. No, really. That's how bad this album is. At least the Metal Enterprises album is so ridiculous that you can mock it.

In short, do not buy this album. Do not listen to this album. Do not even listen to it ironically for laughs, because it's not funny. It sucks huge iron rods suspended in the sky and blows like Hurricane Katrina. There is no talent, no integrity, and no thought put into this; it is a stupid gimmick album that probably a few women bought in the mid-'80s and threw in the garbage when they realized how awful it was, and it's not worth the (considerable) effort it takes to track this down. The music that this seems to most wish it was is Megadeth's early demo output, so get Killing Is My Business if you haven't already; it, unlike this, is actually good music.

Fuck this band.

Killer tracks: Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Each note can be clearly heard and are extremely effective

Jumping from singular to plural here.

Your selection of fixes are:

Make them singular:

"Each note can be clearly heard and is extremely effective."

or

Make them plural:

"All the notes can be clearly heard and are extremely effective."

or

Make the dependent clause an independent one:

"Each note can be clearly heard and all are extremely effective."

and several plural/singular variations on that...

A Unique Contribution to Folk Rock

This album constantly weaves between neofolk numbers, and catchy and fun folk rock tracks (achieved in style and vibe, entirely without electric guitar). Eluveitie are, of course, from Switzerland, but the album is full of beautiful Celtic melodies and female vocals that vary from a French pop music style to an eastern European village chorus feel. Excellent production and instrument selection secure the success of a well-thought out and cohesive collection songs.

Metalheads not fond of neofolk/ambient genres might be a little frustrated by the fluctuating pace of this album (its lack of incessant formulaic Gothenburg melo-death that might have been expected), but this is an essential album for folk rock and neofolk fans, or anyone who appreciates beautiful music and doesn't just want to headbang.

Betwixt and Between Trumpery and Triumph

The only nice things I can say about this album are to do with the lead guitarist: his riffs are reminiscent of Eternal Tears of Sorrow, Isengard, and Thyrfing; and “Maybon Shore”, the second acoustic interlude on the album, is a Neofolk instrumental as good as Finntroll's "Rök" or Catamenia's "Outro" to Halls of Frozen North.

The vocalist, from a death metal and doom background, provides annoying trollish black metal vocals; the drummer, also from a death metal background, contributes humdrum drumming (blast-beats at times). The occasional clean pagan vocals are passable (thanks, in part, to being largely drowned out in the mix); on on "As the Murder Flies" we are given one rare glimpse deep clean doom vocals and death metal growls that show where the vocalist's true talent lies.

Hopefully the guitarists (nothing wrong with either of them) will scour the US and find better talent to work with for future epic/folk-oriented projects, rather than wasting their riffs, because as nice as the riffs are, it’s just not worth enduring the rest of this band in order to hear it.

Another Victory for Viking Metal

A sound bite of rain and deep roaring thunder prefaces a somber acoustic guitar and bassoon (yep, <i>bassoon</i>) intro to the first song (this intro really could have been a separate track, but isn't).

Galar play fairly fast-paced black metal--the genre Norway is known for; so it should come as no surprise that the production on this debut is faultless. And since their aim is not mere black metal, the black metal vocals are appropriately blended into the mix, allowing the pagan vocals (which are never solo, but either in chorus or harmony (the latter of which was a pleasant surprise which I've not heard since Helangår!)) to take the limelight, and also allowing the interesting element of black metal vocals accompanying the clean vox at times. Their lead riffs are fairly generically black metal while the tempo is fast, but lean toward epic in the slower moments, though "Kronet til Konge" has that unmistakable Scandinavian folk sound, and, amusingly, "Slagmarkens Falne Sjeler" abruptly wraps up with a riff in the vein of Amon Amarth.

The interlude, "Skumring", is a heartbreaking piano and bassoon solo. Piano also offers a notable atmosphere for brief moments in other tracks; I only wish we'd heard the bassoon incorporated likewise, to achieve a similar atmosphere to Taunusheim's <i>Nebelkämpfe</i>. Nonetheless, Galar are playing in two genres (folk and black) already saturated, yet have managed to set themselves apart with a signature, sound both grim and beautiful, that is sure to win over many people.

What about the production?

Musicianship?

Songwriting.

Particularly interesting aspects of the album or the band?

Songs that stand out as being particularly good, bad, or otherwise of interest?

Two paragraphs is not much of a review.

All the Galar review tells me is that it's folky black metal. There are a billion folky black metal albums, For all I know it could sound like Bergtatt, Dark Medieval Times, The Olden Domain. a Falkenbach album, or even one of Dimmu Borgir's early demos.

I know nothing about the vocals (aside from being "pagan", which could mean anything since nobody knows what actual pagan folk songs of the middle ages sounded like).

I know nothing about the...guitars.

production...influences, general sound...

...highlights...

What about the production?

if it's competent it doesn't warrant mention.

And who is the judge of a good musician?

what if the musicianship isn't great, but the music is still great?

(does Metallica really have good musicianship?!--does it matter?). If I was tackling Tech./Prog. genres I'd be sure to say something about their competence, since those genres depend upon creativity and musicianship. If Korpiklaani know how to play a guitar and a violin, but they aren't spectacular creative musicians like Symphony X or whoever you like, why give my impression of their talent rather than just speaking on what the music sounds like?

I'm not reviewing a band for American Idol, I'm reviewing an album which could be enjoyable or terrible irrespective of how good a musician a band member is, it really depends on the listener.

subjective and not important to everyone; moreover, I may not speak every language of a band worth reviewing.

already mentioned those.

if I don't think there are any?

what should 'I like this song' matter to anyone? how does that tell them more about the album than the actual style the band plays and what elements they employ?

In my experience, people as often as not have entirely different favorite songs, so it would be pointless or even misleading to single out songs when the point is the album. The only time I'd do that is when one song is a stylistic exception, or far better than the rest somehow.

length is moot. If you can say what it sounds like in two paragraphs, why bore people to tears pontificating for five paragraphs?

Perhaps they do sound like some Dimmu songs to some people. Bergtatt was a very raw album, if the production was extremely raw I would have said so. Instead, I compared their sound to Taunusheim's Nebelkämpfe. Should I add a list of all the bands they do and don't sound like, rather than expecting the audience knows what epic riffs and generic Black Metal passages sound like?

if you were someone interested in the album, you would probably know what Pagan vocals sound like, just as if you were looking at a Death Metal album, you'd know what deep DM growls sound like. My job isn't to give a 101 on what the genre consists of in every single review, no more than you're going to draw up a drum pattern in every Brutal Death Metal band review to explain to some ignorant twit what a blast-beat is.

generic Black Metal riffs, but epic in the slower moments--if you listen to the Epic/Folk Black Metal bands you'll know what to expect, and if you don't, why are you reading about this band? (combine this with the presence or absence of clean vocals, country of origin, language, and production style, and you can converge on their sound, and rule out bands their mere genre classification is the same as--isn't it better that you do this, since you know the bands you know, than to expect me to list every band I know who don't sound the same to underscore the reasons why they don't sound the same, as if I can rely on you knowing all of them?).

already covered that

to who?
Do you want to know what the album sounds like, or what I like the sound of?

I'm not writing a biography, I'm writing a review.

Yes it does, you could say it's competent

preferably something more detailed than that. For all I know they could have more chops than Symphony X or less than early Sarcofago.

You are, dumbass, you're the one writing the review! Judging things is your job as a reviewer!

The album is a product of the band members; their skill, playing style, and the way their instruments sound will greatly affect the album.

There is no such thing as an "objective" or "unbiased" review.

If there aren't any, that means it's a boring fucking album. If you liked the album than certainly some things caught your attention, right?

Because reviews are opinion pieces. A dry, clinical categorization of an album is not a review. If you like something, talk about what you like about it. If you hate something, talk about what you hate about it. If it bored you, talk about why it was boring.

Irrelevant. The review is about YOUR impression of the music.

Because you can't. I learned almost nothing about Galar's music from your review.

Taunusheim. An obscure one-album wonder with a single review to their name. Why would you expect anyone to know who Taunusheim are? Draw parallels to well-known and recognized bands in the scene and to whatever parts of the scene it draws from the most.

Also "generic" is generally not a positive thing to call something. Generic means it's bland, undistinguished, not notable, boring, threadbare, etc. If something is good than it is not generic.

"Pagan" is a very nebulous term. Early Satyricon, early Borknagar, Burzum, Enslaved, Amon Amarth, and Cauldron Born all have pagan themes and imagery, and they sound very different
.

the latter two aren't even black metal.

"Pagan" doesn't mean a goddamn thing. Is he particularly raspy? Gurgly? Deep? Strained? Shrieky? Melancholy? Furious? Goofy?... Are his cleans in a high, low, or mid register? Does he have a wide range? Are his cleans grunting and abrasive, high-pitched wailing, operatic, smooth Garmish monk chants, what? I don't know any of these things.

How about both? Your ultimate job, you know, is to say whether it's a good record or not, that's why the review has the score right at the very top. I could write a three paragraph review talking about how Rust in Peace is a thrash metal album with an "odd" production and "drawled" vocals, and how they have "epic" moments, and nobody would learn anything about Rust in Peace or if they should buy it or not.

your job is to tell a reader, who has not heard of this band before, and doesn't know anything about what they sound like, what this album sounds like in great detail, and its quality or lack thereof.

You can't take your audience for granted.

Don't assume that they know exactly what a Norwegian folk/black metal band will sound like, especially since there are tons of Norwegian folk/black metal bands that sound nothing alike.

Personally I think the content of the reviews is fine, only the English seems quite shaky. Are you sure that's not what they were rejected for? Just seems odd otherwise, I know that a number of mods appreciate reviews that get to the point without too much stuffing and frosting and all.

[assuming you're replying to me, since mine is the most recent post] yep: I quoted the stock (copy-paste) response I was given to all three reviews.

English is my only language, so I'd be interested to know what you take issue with (even though it's not the reason for my initial inquiry, here).

Anyone else completely dumbfounded at how this guy could write that long of a response but his reviews were so damn short?

I should establish right away that I do not consider myself a Nightwish fan. Most of their material seems to be overly poppy, the lyrics are too whiny, the keyboards just sound cheesy and overly Gothic like, and for the most part they are just overrated and lacking most metal elements. Sure they have had a few good songs throughout their career, but have never put out a memorable ALBUM. That is, other than Oceanborn. This album is quite simply a masterpiece. It is pretty much the only Nightwish album to have no fillers, to be completely power metal and the only to lack most of the annoying pop elements. Yes, this album does indeed deserve to be held in the same league as other 90's power metal masterpieces such as Stratovarius' "Episode" and "Dreamspace", Gamma Ray's "Land Of The Free", Virgin Steele's "Marriage" albums through "Atreus", and Angra's "Holy Land". Granted it's not quite as good as a few of those, but pretty close.

One of the strongest points of this album is the fact that it doesn't really sound much like any other power metal albums. Structure-wise it's pretty similar, but the melodies are quite different. It's kind of hard to describe, but if you listen to it you will see. Also, the atmosphere is very strong in this album, bringing up images of mystical serenity. Musically, this is relatively reminiscent of Stratovarius. In fact, the opener "Stargazers"(pretty much the best straight ahead song they ever made) has a VERY Jens Johansson sounding lead intro, and the riffs at times sound Timo Tolkki esque. This song storms forward with great power while the fantastic vocals of Tarja Turunen weave entrancing melodies leading to an epic finale.Everything is at it's best here. Never again would they ever write a song as aggressive as "Devil And The Deep Dark Ocean"(it's pretty aggressive by Nightwish standards), or as catchy as "Sacrament Of Wilderness". Emppu delivers a much more powerful guitar performance then he usually does, the keyboards don't sound too processed and fake like later. Tarja Turunen delivers potentially her most powerful performance in "Passion And The Opera" with lyrics not too unlike "Nymphomaniac Quest" from the previous album. However musically, it's superior, and the ending opera-esque section is a fantastic closing to probably their most operatic song.

Another anomaly on this album (for a lot of PM bands but especially for Nightwish) is that, even though there are THREE BALLADS, they all are fantastic. They really do a romantic atmosphere quite well, although I have to admit these songs ("Swanheart", "Walking In The Air" and "Sleeping Sun") do get stale more so than the other songs on the album. But the height of this band's ability is found in "The Pharaoh Sails To Orion". I don't know where to begin with this one. The first section is probably the most metal we'll ever find this band, with the male vocals fitting in perfectly. The melody that comes in half way through is also amazing. I just can't tell you how strong this song is, and how it encapsulates everything that could possibly be good about this band. The end also includes some great guitar shredding.

Now, before you start to think my original statement is invalid, there are some flaws here. First off, as I said earlier, this album is not QUITE up there with the other classics of this era because the album isn't too varied. The music is very influenced by romantic era classical music, and it basically sticks to that the whole time. Secondly, emotionally the album doesn't change much the whole time, and like all Nightwish albums, this album lacks almost any conceivable form of aggression(other then the aforementioned "Devil And The Deep Dark Ocean" and "The Pharaoh Sails To Orion").

So although it's not quite as brilliant as some other albums from the same era, because of it's musical originality(it's hard to think of bands who sound similar to this) it in many ways it still deserves to heralded as one of the all time great metal classics. Yup, right up there with "Painkiller", "Abigail", "Invictus", "Episode", "The Spectre Within", and "Darkness Descends". It is really sad the band so quickly sold out. They never really captured the atmosphere and originality of this album, and eventually their quest for musical forgetfulness actually became admirable by other bands such as Evanescence. So much so, that being caught listening to anything from any of their albums(aside from this one, Angels Fall First, and a few select tracks from the rest) is actually quite embarrassing. Although that rarely happens since I almost never listen to the rest of their material other then what I have already mentioned. As there really are better bands in the genre to listen to.

But at least we'll always have "Oceanborn".

Like every form of music that has existed since the first caveman banged two sticks together in a rhythmic fashion and marveled at his invention of the beat, there has been a lot of bad music in metal. Some of the music is bad because it is dishonest and commercial, devoid of anything resembling integrity - here you have your sellouts, your Sepulturas, your Dimmu Borgirs. Some music is bad because it is soulless and lacking in inspiration, going through the motions without a spark of life - think later Iced Earth, or Thomen Stauch's half-assed attempt to resurrect Blind Guardian in Savage Circus. Some music fails because it employs terrible ideas, like every band that decided oinking like a distressed pig was "sikk". But Thrash Queen are on an entirely different plane of existence. This is a band that has nothing going for it at all - no skill, no inspiration, no songwriting, no integrity, not a single goddamn thing. There is bad, and there is Thrash Queen. Nothing else comes close.

Thrash Queen were a (alleged) thrash metal band from New England whose big gimmick is, as you may have guessed, being composed of women (a gimmick that would be used far more successfully by Meanstreak, a band most notable for three of its members marrying members of Dream Theater and for being much, much better than Thrash Queen). It's hard to expect much from a gimmick band, especially a gimmick band that don't even seem to understand the genre they're supposed to be playing (the band picture is 100% glam), but Thrash Queen do not have a musical bone to share among all four of their bodies. After only a few days of trying to learn the bass guitar, fumbling through "Freezing Moon" using half-remembered techniques I learned on the upright bass way back in middle school, the sounds I made with my piece of shit $200 Squier bass were more musical than this. The only riffs that exist are simple patterns of quarter note power chords (like the obnoxious 0-4-3-4 riff that kicks off "Chasing the Dragon" and sounds like it came from a particularly bad Myspace black metal band), mallcorish stop start patterns that somehow managed to predate mallcore by twelve years, and midpaced open-string chugging. In short, Thrash Queen do not thrash. The only thing remotely thrash about this is the drumming, extremely incompetent "snare polka" bashing whose tendency to wander out of sync with the music is only partially obscured by the atrocious production (more on that later). The vocals are a faux-masculine whiny screech, like an imitation Kai Hansen with a sore throat and a range of about half an octave. Some of the melodies are simple enough to resemble nursery rhymes, composed entirely of only one or two tones. One wonders why, despite the whole girl power gimmick, "Princess Die" (yes, that's what she calls herself) tries so hard to sound like a man. As for bass, there's a low-pitched thrum following the guitars. I think that might be the bass. The production is also bad, and not good bad, not raw bad, but BAD. This is worse than Nattens Madrigal, worse than Death's demos, worse than most concert bootlegs. The drums are buried under a layer of distortion and static that only affords the listener a vague impression of the beat. The guitar tone is one of the weakest I have heard on a heavy metal album, like the one on Megadeth's Killing is My Business (which was already pretty wimpy) but much thinner. The vocals wander in and out from behind the guitars, like the world's shittiest rays of sunlight dappled through the world's shittiest trees, and pan from left to right or right to left for no apparent reason. Sometimes a channel will just cut out for a second and come back. This sort of sound wouldn't be acceptable on a demo; on an album it's revolting.

"Manslayer" is a miserable opening track, alternating between an extremely simplistic descending arpeggio that is used for around 80% of the song. Yes, a single bar riff of four chords composes most of this song, and most of the rest is stop-start open E chords like you'd hear in an Evanescence song. There's a solo that resembles every other solo on this album, a mindless stream of very slow shredding (I know that sounds contradictory, but the solo is really that bad) with the occasional basic pentatonic lick thrown in wherever Vikki Stone felt like it, played very sloppily. Like most of the songs here, "Manslayer" does not have any real ending, it just kind of stops in its tracks because the band decided that the song should stop. The second track, "No Way Home", starts with an actual riff, an actually rather decent Sabbathian motif that makes you think that perhaps the album might not be as bad as you thought. Don't be fooled; it quickly descends into mindless eighth-note chugging like a cut-rate ripoff of "Exciter" (where's the thrash already?) that occasionally reverts back to the intro riff, which becomes more and more tired each time. The vocals are especially nursery-rhyme-ish here, the melodies barely qualifying as such. Thrash Queen do not seem to understand the idea of verses, choruses, and song structure, and simply seem to switch back and forth between the opening riff and the chug riff whenever the mood strikes them.

From here the album seems content to repeat itself, serving up a structureless mess of half-assed speed metal chugging and attempts at melodic hook riffs (usually tired NWOBHM castoffs) that fall flatter than a Kansas highway. "Retribution" and "Unwed Mother" are virtually identical, and the only way to tell that "Retribution" has ended and "Unwed Mother" has begun is to look at the playlist because the riffs are extremely similar. Some of the songs attempt a "Whiplash"-like stomp, but the result sounds more like a metal version of an oompah band, especially with the shitty production making the snare almost impossible to hear so all you get is THUMP A THUMP A THUMP A THUMP. Each song takes a rhythm and tempo and follows it to the end, with little distinction between different parts of the song (don't even ask for a thrash break). "Prayer for the Ship" and "Tired of Waiting" attempt to break the mold a bit by basically being (terrible) NWOBHM and...I have no idea what "Tired of Waiting" is trying to sound like, but ultimately go nowhere and do nothing worthwhile, each taking only a couple of musical ideas and repeating them relentlessly - "Tired of Waiting" uses the same stop-start open-string bash for the verses, the chorus, and even the fucking bridge, managing to be so repetitive that the only real change in the music is a "gear change" modulation in the last few reptitions of the chorus. "Chasing the Dragon" is nothing but a rehash of "Manslayer" with a different opening riff (that stupid Myspace-BM one I told you about, and it is actually somewhat memorable in its sheer awfulness and the way it is pounded into your head over and over). Was this an attempt at symmetry? Are a band this completely worthless even capable of coming up with such a concept? The only least horrible song on the album is "Now You Ain't Got Me", which has a couple of bona fide thrash riffs (!) that sound like riffs that Dave Mustaine threw out during the Killing is My Business sessions for sucking too much. Sure, they suck, but even cheap knock-off Megadeth is a vast improvement upon pounding on open E until the listener's ears bleed out. Also Mustaine-like are the bursts of guitar soloing thrown in here and there, which are no better than any of the album's other solos, but are welcome for breaking up the monotony. They still can't wrap their minds around the idea of using a different riff for the chorus, and it isn't one-tenth of any actual Megadeth song, but "Now You Ain't Got Me" is slightly less awful than everything else here.


This album is shit. Complete fucking shit. It is the worst thing I've ever heard that has ever been classified as metal, and yes, that includes I Wrestled a Bear Once. It is interesting to note that an unscrupulous record label called Metal Enterprises in Germany later illegally used the Thrash Queen name for a recording made by a bunch of the label's studio musicians. The result was a mishmash of generic guitar riffs, listless drum machine banging, and a woman with a hilariously thick German accent shrieking gibberish on top (LET'Z MEK LOAVE IN ZE REFRIGERATOUR!), with songs looped over and over so that they pushed 9 minutes each, and it was better than this. No, really. That's how bad this album is. At least the Metal Enterprises album is so ridiculous that you can mock it.In short, do not buy this album. Do not listen to this album. Do not even listen to it ironically for laughs, because it's not funny. It sucks huge iron rods suspended in the sky and blows like Hurricane Katrina. There is no talent, no integrity, and no thought put into this; it is a stupid gimmick album that probably a few women bought in the mid-'80s and threw in the garbage when they realized how awful it was, and it's not worth the (considerable) effort it takes to track this down. The music that this seems to most wish it was is Megadeth's early demo output, so get Killing Is My Business if you haven't already; it, unlike this, is actually good music.

Fuck this band.

Killer tracks: Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

You'd better look into the Review FAQ for ideas.

if you really want to have your opinion heard - you'd rather go with the guidelines and not leave it up to luck (since you can't really tell whether or when the "right" mod is the one who's working on the review queue).

Anyone else completely dumbfounded at how this guy could write that long of a response but his reviews were so damn short?

Erotetic, if you think all of these things Woolie is mentioning don't belong in a review...stop writing them. I mean, it's seriously just weird. You are putting so much thought into these posts but you can't just write a more in depth, thoughtful review?

I'm also quite curious as to why he chose to post in the Review Feedback thread, when he is so very unwilling to listen to the feedback offered.

If you're going to go out of your way to ask about how to have your reviews accepted, adopting a little humility wouldn't be a bad idea.

Eluveitie - Evocation I - The Arcane Dominion

Oakhelm - Betwixt and Between

Galar - Skogskvad

Woolie_Wool, it's a great review in my opinion, had me laughing several times. Here's a suggestion of how I'd think the formatting should be:

*snip*

1. I don't think "to weave between" is English.

3. I don't see how that is connected with the rest of the sentence that follows it.

4. Collection OF songs.

5. You said neofolk and fun folk rock in the first sentence, where does the ambient suddenly come from? And why do you say "genres" in plural, are different or particular subgenres of neofolk and ambient presented here?

6. Pretty sure you'd want to add an "and" here. And a quick mention that incessant melo-death is what Eluveitie are usually known for, because I'm fairly certain that's what you're implying, but I can't be sure because it seems so vague and random the way you put it.

7. Now "essential" is a big word, and here you will definitely have to elaborate your opinion a little further. If you just said that it's "good" the content of the review is fine, but "essential" implies something greater and more unique than just "full of beautiful melodies".

1. Huh?

3. Shush! Don't capitalize that! Also, not everyone might have heard those particular songs by Finntroll and Catamenia, even fans of such music, and "neofolk" is a broad genre, so you're really saying very little.

4. What do you mean by "trollish"? How are they annoying? I'm not playing devil's advocate here, I seriously don't have a clue. You mean some sort of drunken crooning or something, like Einherjer?

5. Now wtf is "humdrum drumming"?

if a band was from the US and their lyrics were in German, I would phrase it the same way: 'they're from the US, but [element that might not have been expected is present]'

some of the Neofolk numbers have an ambient mood to them, rather than being strictly neofolk.

given that it's their genre classification on the same website on which the review would have been featured, mentioning that seemed as redundant as saying they're from Switzerland was.

beautiful melodies, and excellent instrument selection, and excellent production, and diversity, all of which I said.
This isn't some mediocre and bland Darkwood album, so anyone who listens to their genre absolutely should get this album.

If people haven't heard those songs, there is little more I can do. I've described them and compared them. If I don't know any others they're sufficiently similar to in tone and production I'm not going to give a comparison and a description will have to suffice.

"In Eternal Rest" by Volkolak is my staple example.

monotonous.
any reader has access to dictionary.com

1. "leans" or "leaning". Obvious. Also "epic tempo" doesn't really qualify as proper terminology, I think.

2. This is turning into a run-on sentence, which isn't exactly working in its favour. Make it one sentence about the generic black metal riffing, one about the tempo, and one about the two songs you mentioned.

3. Now that I am certain is a comma splice.

4. Poorly constructed sentence, and it doesn't fit there at all. Put the bit about the piano (and write "A piano" instead of just "Piano") after the sentence about the riffing, so you first have general things about the album, then particular songs.

6. What an abrupt transition. First of all, start a new paragraph there, since you're talking about something entirely different (the quality of the album).

7. Three ideas for how you could have meant it:
a. "have managed to set themselves apart with a signature sound both grim and beautiful, that is sure to win over many people."
b. "have managed to set themselves apart with a signature that sounds both grim and beautiful, that is sure to win over many people."
c. "have managed to set themselves apart with a signature, sound both grim and beautiful, and are therefore sure to win over many people."
(ignoring what I think is a comma splice again)

You haven't described anything

all you did was giving a comparison to two songs, one of which is by a band that isn't even known for folkish sort of stuff but more of a run-of-the-mill meloblack band.

Neofolk as I said can mean a variety of things, so being told that a song is somewhere between Sonne Hagal's faster, more upbeat songs and Fire + Ice's slow, brooding ballads is entirely useless. I don't see one word of description past the genre and the two comparisons.

You say you want to tell people who are interested in that sort of music if they are going to like it or not

Still doesn't tell me shit. I don't even know if what you are referring to are clean vocals, or growls, or screams, or whatever, I simply have no idea what you are saying, neither will anyone else who doesn't happen to think exactly like you.