This review got rejected twice. Once for grammatical errors, again for not describing the album good enough. My reviews got rejected before for those reasons. From now on, I'm going to post my reviews here to see if they are acceptable or not before submitting them to the queue. I decided to try improving my review on this album. Here it is:

Album: Vital Remains - Dechristianize
Title: This Should Convert Some People
Rating: 97

"I never listened to any albums from Vital Remains that came before or after this one. But I heard they were a pretty good band. I'm a fan of Deicide, so it also convinced me seeing that Glen Benton was in the band once. I decided to check this out and I was blown away. I can see why this gets praise. This should tickle your fancy if you're a fan of straight up death metal or just death metal in general.

Glen Benton is an awesome vocalist in my opinion. His growls are low and brutal and his shrieks really pack a punch. He does growls more than shrieks. He does shrieks very rarely but when he does, they're amazing. He sounds the same here that he does in Deicide. If you like Glen Benton's performance in Deicide, there's no doubt you will like him here.

The title of this album, as well as the artwork, kind of gives away the lyrical content. The lyrical content deals with anti-religious/Satanic topics. This shouldn't be a surprise either since it has Glen Benton from the aforementioned Deicide, which a majority of that band's lyrical content involves anti-religious/Satanic topic. I happen to enjoy the lyrics. This should please you if you're a fan of lyrics that bash Christianity. If you can at least tolerate those kinds of lyrics, these shouldn't bother you. If you hate Christianity-bashing lyrics, you'll hate these.

The instrumentation is pretty complex and fast. I really enjoy the guitar playing. While the guitar playing is melodic, it sounds very evil too, which is very fitting, considering the music they're playing. The drumming is very fast with a lot of blast beats. The drumming should please anyone who likes loads of blast beats and skull crushingly fast playing.

So in conclusion, this is an awesome record. I can see myself buying this if I come across a copy. This would be a wet dream for death metal fans. I would recommend this to fans of death metal (more specifically, also fans of death metal bands along the lines of Deicide and Morbid Angel). This is recommended to people who enjoy blasphemous lyrics too. If you hate death metal and/or Christianity-bashing lyrics, I don't recommend this at all. This gets a 97/100 (9.7/10) with a standout track being "Savior to None... Failure for All...." "

Do you remember what the rejection message stated?

I think this lacks detail. It has good formatting and the grammar seems okay, albeit you could be a bit more colorful with your word choice. However, you don't really go into much depth describing things, just a lot of surface observations and then the review just ends.

I see what you mean. I'll admit, I do suck at describing things good enough to give an indication of how it really sounds most of the time. I'm adding some more to the review. I feel kind of stupid for asking this, but would you talk about the production in the same paragraph as the instruments? I'm just wondering.

Depends on how much you have to say about each. If you've only got a couple sentences worth of words for the both of them then yeah sure make it one paragraph. But if you've got sizable paragraphs already for each then no, don't make a gigantour paragraph.

Alright. Thanks.

I have worked on this review even further. Is it acceptable or not?

Album: Vital Remains - Dechristianize
Title: This Should Convert Some People
Rating: 90%

"I never listened to any albums from Vital Remains that came before or after this one. But I heard they were a pretty good band. I'm a fan of Deicide, so it also convinced me seeing that Glen Benton was in the band once. I decided to check this out and I was blown away. I can see why this gets praise. This should tickle your fancy if you're a fan of straight up death metal or just death metal in general.

Glen Benton is an awesome vocalist in my opinion. His growls are low and brutal and his shrieks really pack a punch. He does growls more than shrieks. He does shrieks very rarely but when he does do them, they're amazing. It's hard to believe he is an actual human. He sounds like a demon that came out of Hell. If you like Glen Benton's performance in Deicide, there's no doubt you will like him here.

The title of this album, as well as the artwork, kind of gives away the lyrical content. The lyrical content deals with anti-religious/Satanic topics. This shouldn't be a surprise either since it has Glen Benton from the aforementioned Deicide, which a majority of that band's lyrical content involves anti-religious/Satanic topic. I happen to enjoy the lyrics. This should please you if you're a fan of lyrics that bash Christianity. If you can at least tolerate those kinds of lyrics, these shouldn't bother you. If you hate Christianity-bashing lyrics, you'll hate these. Every song on the album has the same lyrical themes. So this may get tiring for you. But if you don't mind repetition that much, this shouldn't bother you.

The instrumentation is pretty complex and fast. I really enjoy the guitar playing. While the guitar playing is melodic, it sounds very evil too, which is very fitting, considering the music they're playing. There are some great solos that are pretty melodic and they certainly take some skill to play. The guitars also have that distorted, dirty sound that pretty much most death metal has. The drumming is very fast with a lot of blast beats. The drums are also triggered, so you will hear some clicking. If you can get past that, then the triggers shouldn't bother you too much. They also have a tinny sound to them. I'm not really a fan of that sound. I think it sounds okay sometimes though. It's alright here, but it tends to get annoying sometimes. Sadly, this caused the album to lose some points. But aside from that, I find the drumming to be pretty enjoyable. The bass is nowhere to be heard. So I'm not even going to talk about that. The production for this album is great. It makes the album really heavy and it also adds some grit to the instruments. The mixing is good for the most part. I can hear every instrument just fine except for the bass. But I'm used to it not being there. So it doesn't bother me.

So in conclusion, this is an awesome record. I can see myself buying this if I come across a copy. This would be a wet dream for death metal fans. I would recommend this to fans of death metal and people who happen to like blasphemous music. If you hate death metal and/or Christianity-bashing lyrics, I don't recommend this at all. This gets a 90/100 (9/10) with a standout track being "Savior to None... Failure for All...." "

Rewrite the first and last paragraphs, they're both really subpar honestly. Pet peeve here bit I'm going to call you out on it; "in conclusion" has no fucking place in a review. Don't do it, don't write it, don't even fucking think it. This isn't a school paper, and we should all be well beyond that type of writing before publishing reviews on this site.

Other than that you suffer from another problem that is becoming all too common these days. You have no flow in your review, when you read it it should flow well. The over use of periods (which BTW I consider grammar errors for anyone receiving feedback from me) rapes the ability of a review to be easy/pleasing for the reader. Go back and read it aloud and you'll see what I mean. There needs to be a nice flow when reading.

Okay, I took away some parts and added some parts to the first and last paragraphs. I took away the "in conclusion" thing and I also took away some of the periods and tried making the flow better. How is this?:

"Vital Remains is an American death metal band that formed in 1988. I never listened to any of their albums that came before or after this one, but I heard they were a pretty good band. Since I am a fan of Deicide, it also convinced me to check them out when I saw that Glen Benton was in the band once. When I heard this, I was blown away and I could see why this gets praise. I don't enjoy this album as much as I enjoy Deicide but it's still pretty great and I recommend this to death metal fans and Deicide fans.

Glen Benton is an awesome vocalist in my opinion. His growls are low and brutal and his shrieks really pack a punch. He does growls more than shrieks but when he does do shrieks, they're amazing. It's hard to believe he is an actual human, because he sounds like a demon that came out of Hell. If you like Glen Benton's performance in Deicide, there's no doubt you will like him here.

The title of this album, as well as the artwork, kind of gives away the lyrical content. The lyrical content deals with anti-religious/Satanic topics, which shouldn't be a surprise either since it has Glen Benton from the aforementioned Deicide. I happen to enjoy the lyrics and this should please you if you like lyrics that bash Christianity. If you can at least tolerate those kinds of lyrics, these shouldn't bother you and if you hate Christianity-bashing lyrics, you'll hate these. Every song on the album has the same lyrical themes so this may get tiring for you, but if you don't mind repetition that much, this shouldn't bother you.

The instrumentation is pretty complex and fast and I really enjoy the guitar playing. While the guitar playing is melodic, it sounds very evil too, which is very fitting, considering the music they're playing. There are some great solos that are pretty melodic and they certainly take some skill to play. The guitars also have that distorted, dirty sound that pretty much most death metal has. The drumming is very fast with a lot of blast beats. The drums are also triggered, so you will hear some clicking but if you can get past that, the triggers shouldn't bother you too much. They also have a tinny sound to them, which I'm not really a fan of that sound but I think it sounds okay sometimes. It's alright here but it tends to get annoying sometimes. Sadly, this caused the album to lose some points but aside from that, I find the drumming to be pretty enjoyable. The bass is nowhere to be heard so I'm not even going to talk about that. The production for this album is great, since it makes the album really heavy and it also adds some grit to the instruments. The mixing is good for the most part, since I can hear every instrument just fine except for the bass but I'm used to that anyway.

So overall, this is an awesome record with great vocals, blasphemous lyrics, solid instrumentation, heavy production and good mixing. I can see myself buying this if I come across a copy and I would recommend this to fans of death metal (more specifically, fans of bands in the genre like Deicide and Morbid Angel). If you hate death metal, I don't recommend this at all, since it's very unlikely to actually change your mind. This gets a 90/100 (9/10) with a standout track being "Savior to None... Failure for All...." "

I ended up re-writing a review I did since it got rejected, and I understand why. I didn't want to just correct the review, but re-write it. I don't want to send it to get it pending and have it be just terrible, but I feel something from it is... missing, and I would love opinions on it.


An old calling in a relatively new look on things, or so is the best way to quickly describe a new view on an older Moloch album released in 2010. With the unleashing of “Die Isolation” we can see that some of the songs, and even album title, are closely related to the album “Isolation der Essenz”. Well that’s because this release is a new look on that older album. While some people will consider this just another album reissue, or a compilation with new tracks on it, for those that listen to this album can gather and understand that it’s a release that will stand stronger than its predecessor.

“Die Isolation” contains only three tracks from the original album release, which are all the black metal songs. The rest of the tracks on this new release are all instrumental tracks, either unreleased tracks from past compilations or new tracks altogether, with the exception of the concluding track “Abgrund meines Wesenz” which is seen on another album. The way that this album is put together gives it a new feeling compared to what it used to be.

If you’re looking for an album to have a good time while laughing and giggling with your friends or family, then this album is not meant for you. I see this album as a depressing album, musically and lyrically. For those that are a little visual with their music, think of this album as a journey. Maybe wandering through a forest in the middle of winter, or wandering a large city with the blank expressions on people’s faces passing you by.

Each black metal song is full of blasting guitars, drums and bass, with pain filled vocals and howling screams throughout them. While this album may not have the perfect mastering that so many people prefer, like those of Immortal or Mayhem, the mastering of this album makes the songs have a rough sound to them without having a raw black metal sound. The mastering of this album is perfect for the setting for what it represents: depression, isolation, sadness and even feelings of longing.

This album, from start to finish, is a cold winter storm that grab hold of the listener and will not let go. The only moments of calm, if you can call it that, are the introduction and conclusion ambient tracks. There are short instrumental breaks between each black metal song, but that’s all they are; short breaks offering no ambient material, just guitars. The introduction track is short, and brings the listener in with its soft tones with almost a drone-like sound mixed with ambient. The conclusion track, if people listen to the entire album, is just enough for most souls to end the journey the album takes them on. The atmosphere and ambient sound of the conclusion track is the perfect ending to this album in comparison to “Isolation der Essenz”.

Of all the releases that Moloch has given the world since 2004, I recommend this album above all others. This album is the one I can connect to the most with the lyrics, music and atmosphere. I don’t listen to this album if I need cheered up, but something always brings me to this album when things are… not right. But that is just me, there will be others who will listen to this album to bang their heads and enjoy an amazing album. On this album I highly recommend the tracks “Depressive Visionen eines sterbenden Horizonts”, “Die letzten Strahlen der Sonne verblassen in der Kälte der Apathie” “Nebelwald” and of course “Abgrund meines Wesenz”. When it comes to the music, lyrics, atmosphere and mastering of this album, I believe that it represents what the band Moloch is all about.

Greetings.

I have posted one of my reviews here (at the end of the page 67) but nobody seems to be giving it much attention . I am not willing to seem too insistent, I just want to underline the fact the I would appreciate and could use some help, too .

Thanks.

I'm back.

Here's the Blud Baf review that some of you may recognize. All of the typos have been fixed, but I wanted to know if there are any SPELLING or GRAMMAR mistakes still present that I have somehow missed. Thanks.


"From the Alex Skolnick-like tone/shredding to each pounding riff, Blud Baf have succeeded in making a album that's full of fun riffs, licks, interludes, solos, and of course grooves. Each song is its own trip down the road to insanity that includes some Pantera-esque harmonics and djent laden breakdowns. But was Blud Dungeon Crawler 4.1 truly a groove/death metal album? Not so much, especially when it came to the “death metal” that this album supposedly possesses. However, this album’s imaginative song titles and aura saved it from losing much of its favorable qualities.

Of the lyrics that I could hear in Blud Dungeon Crawler 4.1, the line "I will kill you" was the one that would continually get repeated over and over again. Just about everything that I could hear was in the first person standpoint. The lyrics just ran dry. Some of the song structure was very similar as well. "Blud Metal 2.1," "TOTS stereophonic," and "Myymbptt NPC Modal 4.33 0," were all right next to each other in the track listing, and had similar song structure. They all had a djent-like verse, a melodic or flowing chorus, and the standard shredding solo. It just seemed like the farther you went down the track list, the less memorable and innovative the songs became. The other seven songs however were genius. They were some of the grooviest metal songs I've heard in a long while, and they got my head banging. All of this along with absolutely weird song titles, some in Japanese, added to this album's funky nature. Pat and Kyle really know how to create a unique record despite the sometimes less-than-spectacular lyrics.

Blud Baf's musical skill demonstrated here is nothing short of amazing. At first I thought that Kyle didn't look like much compared to Pat with his huge list of instruments he played on Blud Dungeon Crawler 4.1, but when I heard his solo in "Death By Sleep" I realized why he is in this band. His solos and shredding are like a mixture of Alex Skolnick's tone with a Tony Iommi-like note choice and flow. He just rips. And Pat is just astounding. The man is a great multi-instrumentalist who satisfies the listener on every track with impressive song writing and musical ability. His drumming was on point, his bass playing was loose and flowing, and his rhythm guitar parts complemented Kyle's leads perfectly. His work in "Death By Sleep" and "Nagato/Pain 11 .20" is arguably his best and most versatile.

The songwriting demonstrated in Blud Dungeon Crawler 4.1's better songs was very professional and had definitely been thought through. "Blud Metal" owes its amazing nature to how the song was structured, and was a good example of this songwriting. Nothing was too long or too short and clearly showed that Blud Baf knows what the phrase "commercial friendly" means. One can easily tell that these two men have an odd, but definite sense of humor. The most hilarious form of this humor was at the end of "Death By Sleep," right before the keyboard solo. Directly before the breakdown, Pat says "The song is not over," as if to remind the listener that they should still be listening. Listen to the song to understand why this isn't as funny typed out as it is in the song.

My only other complaint was regarding Pat's vocals. A few quiet sections here and there of him whispering into the mic were okay, however, it got real old, real fast. I could hear myself mouthing screaming parts to many a quiet verse. If this is a death/groove metal record, then where were the screams and growls that could've made the album work even better. He did have some great moments like in "危ない," in which he showed off quite an impressive vocal range. I'm still not sure what to make of Pat's vocals, but for the most part they worked.

Death/groove metal might not be the best description for this band's sound, and it's definitely not the sound that you are going to receive from Blud Dungeon Crawler 4.1 for the most part. Is that a bad thing? Nope. Bluf Baf's music is still very exceptional. Should they choose to write better lyrics, add vocals with different tones and pitches, then they are on their way to a perfect release. And I will be listening to it the day it comes out, because there is nothing like this band's sound."

Darkness: the Vital Remains review is much better now. The only thing I would say is you don't need to have a score/rating contained within the review, that's what the score is for when you submit it. Just remove that and I think you'll be alright to submit.

Doktor: it seems alright to me though I don't care for your attempt at humor. I'd recommend not trying to be funny until you have a knack for it, I would get rid of the third paragraph altogether.

Rolfe: you still have some poor sentence structure but it's way better then before. I still feel like your description in some places is more akin to a list rather than a review, obviously it's in a review style but it reads like a list and that goes back to the structure thing. Also right off the bat in your opening sentence you have an "a" instead of an "an".

Alright. Thanks.

I'm not sure what was "poor," but thanks for the feedback.

My review has been previously rejected for:
-Typos
-Weird syntax
After correcting the typos and trying to fix the weird syntax(although it wasn't made clear to me if weird syntax meant wrong syntax or correct but just plain weird) this is what I have come up with:

Album: Human Serpent - Inhumane Minimalism
Review Title: Ceremony Of Perdition
Rating: 96%

"I could use an introduction for this, second, full-length of the Greek band Human Serpent, but the starting tunes of "The World In Coffins" in the playlist made me want to listen to it for 12 consecutive times until I moved on to the next track. It most probably is the most riveting track of an extremely riveting album.

The band once again combines the feelings of enmity, anger, aggression with those of melancholy, nihilism and anguish and in doing so, they create a unique atmosphere. This is made evident to anyone upon hearing "Messiah For Parasites". I am pretty sure that its closing riff will stay in your mind for a lot more hours to come. The tracks "Trees Of Flesh", "Starving Void Upon Earth" and "Decay" form a trio of utterly in-your-face tracks, three tracks with lyrical themes of absolute nihilism and hatred. It feels like each track molds an individual story yet at the very same time, I feel that their content and atmosphere pieces them together in a solid unit. Aggressive and violent guitar riffing and excellent drumming combine in high-speed to create an atmosphere of extreme destruction.

At this point, I would like to point out that I feel that the tracks "Bottomless Fall" and "The Lament" are "surprise" tracks in the "Inhumane Minimalism" album. That is primarily because they have a momentum of their own, in the frame of the nihilistic lyrics that environs them. The slow tempo of these two, greatly influenced by the Polish black metal scene, tracks provides a different, special tone of nostalgia, grief and sadness. The placement of these two tracks, their combination with "Funeral Grimness" and "Mother Of Depression" and the fact that these four tracks share the same emotional atmosphere exponentially strengthens the feelings of excitement and emotional alertness that the previous tracks created.

I chose to comment on the vocals and the lyrics last, as a whole, both have ascended on a great amount of levels.The vocals combine hatred, pain and power made of steel, especially in the parts that feature long screams. One of the things I really like is when black metal bands use their native language in their lyrics. It doesn't matter to me whether the lyrics feature a combination of the native language and English or whether they feature solely the native language. The very fact that they use their native language in some form provides an additional and deeper layer of expression, in my opinion.

The "Inhumane Minimalism" full-length, creative-wise, stands taller than its predecessor, it also stands taller as far as the production, the atmosphere and-mainly-the character is concerned. I really enjoy the fact that Human Serpent are able to use influences from the Greek, Polish and Finnish black metal scenes, but at the very same time they have developed a character of their own that consolidates them in the black metal scene.

Human Serpent is a Greek black metal band that created the foundations of their own individual personality and they unrelentingly continue to create primitive, aggressive, violent, misanthropic black metal where decadence and decay have their own special place in-as they do in the covers and artworks of all of their releases-."

I would really like some thoughts and feedback from the community.
Thank you in advance!

1) Don't use the word evanesce. It sounds stupid and try hard, doesn't matter if you found it in the dictionary or not.
2) You almost did a track by track but even then you failed. Your first paragraph is TBT for the first three songs but you lack description. Also TBTs are forbidden.
3) Your third paragraph is decent, if the whole review was written this way it would probably have been accepted.
4) One sentence a paragraph doesn't make. This whole review the way you have it written is two paragraphs and three separate sentences. Come on now, how could you think that was enough?
5) Your review is lacking very much, see #4
6) When listing things (example here drums, bass, guitar, and vocals) you need to include commas after everything up to the word and, which you do not.
7) I suggest a full rewrite.
8) Stop crying because people don't have a chance to get back to you within one fucking day. One reminder that you needed feedback was enough, that stupid ass post above this makes me not want to help you at all.


_Agony: The review seems almost fine to me though I do have a few suggestions for you:
1) Lose the first bit about the introduction, it's pretty pointless and makes the review seem odd.
2) Also lose the bit at the end about the history of the band, if you're going to put stuff like that in your review it fits better in the beginning than the end but it really isn't necessary for a review.
3) I would also suggest you beef up what would be your last paragraph if you take out the band history. What you have there is a good start but it still feels a bit lacking. Just add a couple more sentences that elaborate on your point.

I will do my best to follow your suggestions. Thank you.



Sorry, won't happen again.

This is my review for Annihilator's Phantasmagoria demo

After Jeff Waters fired most of the band members that were a part of the recording of the 1985 WTYD demo, he left the original drummer and as a 2-part band this demo was released. This demo is as technical as the previous one, but still seems to do its job. As the first song, Gallery kicks in. The first thing you realize is that this isn't the Annihilator everyone knows, as Jeff (the vocalist in this demo) growls in a very way ahead of its time, resembling a lighter version of Morbid Angel, and was probably influenced by the rising death metal scene that was developed at the time (Mantas, Possessed Xecutioner). It was never released in the name it had in the demo, and eventually abandoned and its riffs were used in Annihilator's first album. Alison Hell, which is undoubtly their most known song, comes next, but is executed differently. It has faster riffing and a longer intro, but nothing special.

And then comes Phantasmagoria. And no doubt Jeff chose it as the demo's name.

As the song begins, a riff mayhem lacerates your innocent ears, not waiting until the drums join in and eventually Jeff's surprising growling talent shows in. This version of Phantasmagoria is faster, more furious and packed with musical brilliance Annihilator will be known for in their future years. This version features some impressive tapping soloing, time changes and blast beats (!) which were weren't featured in the studio recording of this in 1990, which is a pity because these make the song more interesting and more enjoyable. The last song is Ligeia, which is made darker and heavier as the previous songs that were featured in the demo. It features some neck-breaking riffs, but still a typical thrash song.

The production sounds as underground as it could be, with about the same quality of Metallica's No Life 'til Leather, but is a little clearer as the bass is sometimes heard, the drummer is heard pounding the skins as hardest as he could, the guitars sound crunchier than ever , and all of these are made heavier and dirtier with the amateur production.
Very recommended.

Raspberrysoda: There are some grammar/structure issues. Ex: "...growls in a very way ahead of its time...," "...as hardest as he could..." The first sentence of the third paragraph needs to be revised. It sounds far too odd and sounds like you are being way too heavy with figurative language. The two sentence paragraph should just be added to the third one to make it bigger, because it looks out of place.

You seem to know what you are talking about, so just run your review through a spell/grammar check and you will probably be fine.

Thanks.
This is the fixed version:

After Jeff Waters fired most of the band members that were a part of the recording of the 1985 WTYD demo, he left the original drummer and as a 2-part band this demo was released. This demo is as technical as the previous one, but still seems to do its job. As the first song, Gallery kicks in. The first thing you realize is that this isn't the Annihilator everyone knows, as Jeff (the vocalist in this demo) growls in a way very ahead of its time, resembling a lighter version of Morbid Angel, and was probably influenced by the rising death metal scene that was developed at the time (Mantas, Possessed Xecutioner). It was never released in the name it had in the demo, and eventually abandoned and its riffs were used in Annihilator's first album. Alison Hell, which is undoubtly their most known song, comes next, but is executed differently. It has faster riffing and a longer intro, but nothing special.

And then comes Phantasmagoria. And no doubt Jeff chose it as the demo's name.
As the song begins, a riff mayhem lacerates your ears, not waiting until the drums join in and eventually Jeff's growling shows in. This version of Phantasmagoria is faster, more furious and packed with musical brilliance Annihilator will be known for in their future years- it features some impressive tapping soloing, time changes and blast beats (!) that weren't featured in the studio recording of this in 1990, which is a pity because these make the song more interesting and more enjoyable. The last song is Ligeia, which is made darker and heavier as the previous songs that were featured in the demo. It features some neck-breaking riffs, but still a typical thrash song.

The production sounds as underground as it could be, with about the same quality of Metallica's No Life 'til Leather, but is a little clearer as the bass is sometimes heard, the drummer is heard pounding the skins , the guitars sound crunchier than ever, and all of these are made heavier and dirtier with the amateur production.
Very recommended.

Raspberrysoda:

There are still quite a few mistakes.



Why is "(!)" there?



This is an incomplete sentence.



Look at this sentence fragment in your second paragraph. It does not fit. The last sentence of that paragraph needs to be rewritten as well. Finally, putting quotes around songs is a good idea. It makes your reviews look more organized. You just have to look as in depth as you can into your writing. I still make mistakes too, and my reviews are not always the best they can be. Just keep at it.

Thanks. Anything else that maybe I should consider? Are reviews that are formatted like this acceptable?

Raspberry: There is not much else in the ways of grammar/sentence structure/spelling that I can see at the moment. I'm not going to critique your style of writing because that surpresses your "voice," and would only reflect my changes that I would want in your review, so don't worry about that. Your formatting is fine. You can arrange your review in just about any way you wish, but it has to meet the standards of the Metal Archives.

Yes, you should stop ignoring what I told you and try reviewing something other than singles/demos. This is still unacceptable. You are welcome to continue posting your drafts here, but again: these are nowhere near acceptable for the reasons Roffle explained (and more, IMO).

Hey everybody,

since my review has been rejected two times, I've been sent here for some help. First time the review had too many typos, second time still some typos and too many hyphens. I canceled out some of the hyphens, corrected two more typos I found and rewrote a few lines. Now here is the updated version. I'm not a native speaker so I'm especially grateful for correction in terms of grammar and spelling. But stylistic advises are welcome too, of course. Thanks for your feedback in advance.

My Review:

Considering the great leap forward Darkspace took with their third album it was to be expected that they would evolve their sound further on their fourth opus. In comparison to “Dark Space II” the overall improvements on “Dark Space III” just blew my mind. The production was more transparent but maintained the cold, harsh character which is vital to Darkspace's music. The arrangements (especially when it came to synthesizers) were more intelligent and together with the other instruments created a thick but menacing melange. The vocals sounded even more sick and sinister than before. Finally, the song's structures presented a mesmerizing combination of walls of chords with cutting synthesizers and brutal stomping parts bursting out of nothing steamrolling everything to the ground.

Listening to “Dark Space III I” it gets obvious within the first few minutes that Darkspace don't stay where they are but still keep a bunch of their trademarks. It's not a giant step like from their second to their third album but still a step there is. The music still creates an evil and chaotic atmosphere mirroring impressively the deadliness and hostility of outer space and whatever is lurking in the cosmic vastness. The atmosphere is still created by Darkspace's talent for using monotonous riffs and countless repetitions but arranging and changing them in such a way that the songs stay interesting. There is even a bit of “Dark Space II” to be found here, since “Dark Space III I” also consists of only three songs which themselves consist of almost as many guitars/drums/bass/vocals/synthesizer-parts as of synthesizer/sound-effects-only-parts. Thus it's impossible to judge “Dark Space III I” by single songs (if this is possible at all when you talk about albums from Darkspace). You have to contemplate it as a whole. And it's pretty easy to do this, since there is one thing that Darkspace did better on “Dark Space III I” than ever before. And that's the weaving of over one hour of music into one entity that doesn't reveal itself as actually consisting of many parts. It truly could be just one long song. I can't find this quality on any of the precedent albums.

So far I talked only about what Darkspace did better on “Dark Space III I” than on “Dark Space III” or about aspects that are as good as before. But since I'm giving “Dark Space III I” a rating of 85% while “Dark Space III” would easily score a 95%, if not a 100%, I have to talk about what I didn't like as well. The “mesmerizing combination” of which I wrote so enthusiastically at the end of the first paragraph is still there, though the breaking points don't strike me as effective as they did on “Dark Space III”. They still sound menacing, they still upvalue the music but it just doesn't leave me as speechless as it did before. Another thing is the production. The first bassdrum beats sounded strange to me since they sound more like an EDM bass drum, not a black metal bass drum. But on the other hand an electronic sounding bass drum maybe isn't that out of place on an album conceptually dealing with space and Sci-Fi. However, this sound is not maintained throughout the whole album but pretty soon turns into a decent metal drum sound. Which is good, I think. But still the main drum sound on “Dark Space III I” isn't that fitting as it was on “Darkspace III”. Is it clearer? Sure. Is it more powerful? No doubt. Does it contribute to the atmosphere? Well, yes, but not as much as it did on “Darkspace III” and whether something enhances the atmosphere should be the key question when judging a Darkspace record. Finally, I stumbled upon two parts that I'm unable to locate accurately, but you'll know what I mean when you hear them. There are two moments on this album where the synthesizer jumps out and does an unusually rhythmic part (by Darkspace's means that is). I don't even think it sounds bad. But the monotony which is vital to Darkspace's sound is suddenly broken and the atmosphere disrupted. It must seem strange that I'm making such a big deal out of such a small moment, but I'm being honest here and these two parts didn't work out for me.

All in all my critique must be seen in the light of Darkspace's genius which I assign them without hesitation. What I'm complaining about here is like a bottle of water spilled over a burning car. We are still talking about an absolutely amazing album here. If you're looking for something you can close your eyes to and forget everything that surrounds you, then you are good to go. I can't think of any band that sustains this quality of evil and threatening atmosphere over such a long time without getting boring or over the top. But you'll have to listen to it properly And by that I mean: If you start it for five minutes, then wait for one hour and start it again for ten minutes, and so on, it won't give you much. You have to regard it as a whole, as a gigantic menacing monolith that takes time to explore.

Final conclusion: “Dark Space III I” is a beast of an album, but if you want to listen to this kind of music in its perfected form, try out “Dark Space III”.

SicGod,

Greetings.

"Bassdrum" and "upvalue" are not real words.



Don't capitalize 'and' in the middle of a sentence.



The way you are arranging your quotes is sometimes incorrect. They should be done like this: "metal." "metal,"

That should about do it for the grammar and spelling mistakes (I ran your review through a spell/grammar check).

Greetings,
After taking into considerattion the comments by "Erosion of Humanity" for my previous post, I made some changes(based on those comments). This is what I have come up with:

"I could use an introduction for this, second, full-length of the Greek band Human Serpent, but after the listening session was over I just wanted to share the musical and emotional experience that is "Inhumane Minimalism" without needless words and platitudes.

I was blown away just by the starting tunes of "The World In Coffins" in the playlist, at that point I knew that I was about to embark on another musical journey that consisted of strong feelings of negativity and ingenius songwritting. I listened to it 12 consecutive times until I moved on to the second track. It most probably is the most riveting track of an extremely riveting album. The band once again combines the feelings of enmity, anger, aggression with those of melancholy, nihilism and anguish and in doing so, they create a unique atmosphere. This is made evident to anyone upon hearing "Messiah For Parasites". I am pretty sure that its closing riff will stay in your mind for a lot more hours to come. The tracks "Trees Of Flesh", "Starving Void Upon Earth" and "Decay" form a trio of utterly in-your-face tracks, three tracks with lyrical themes of absolute nihilism and hatred. It feels like each track molds an individual story yet at the very same time, I feel that their content and atmosphere pieces them together in a solid unit. Aggressive and violent guitar riffing and excellent drumming combine in high-speed to create an atmosphere of extreme destruction.

At this point, I would like to point out that I feel that the tracks "Bottomless Fall" and "The Lament" are "surprise" tracks in the "Inhumane Minimalism" album. That is primarily because they have a momentum of their own, in the frame of the nihilistic lyrics that environs them. The slow tempo of these two, greatly influenced by the Polish black metal scene, tracks provides a different, special tone of nostalgia, grief and sadness. The placement of these two tracks, their combination with "Funeral Grimness" and "Mother Of Depression" and the fact that these four tracks share the same emotional atmosphere exponentially strengthens the feelings of excitement and emotional alertness that the previous tracks created.

I chose to comment on the vocals and the lyrics last, as a whole, both have ascended on a great amount of levels.The vocals combine hatred, pain and power made of steel, especially in the parts that feature long screams. One of the things I really like is when black metal bands use their native language in their lyrics. It doesn't matter to me whether the lyrics feature a combination of the native language and English or whether they feature solely the native language. The very fact that they use their native language in some form provides an additional and deeper layer of expression, in my opinion.

The "Inhumane Minimalism" full-length, creative-wise, stands taller than its predecessor, it also stands taller as far as the production, the atmosphere and-mainly-the character is concerned. I really enjoy the fact that Human Serpent are able to use influences from the Greek, Polish and Finnish black metal scenes, but at the very same time they have developed a character of their own that consolidates them in the black metal scene.

Human Serpent is a Greek black metal band that created the foundations of their own individual personality merely 2 years ago, with the release of their "The Eternal Loyalty To Misanthropy" demo. Since then, they unrelentingly continue to create primitive, aggressive, violent, misanthropic black metal where decadence and decay have their own special place in-as they do in the covers and artworks of all of their releases-."

Once again any comments, thoughts and further suggestions would be highly welcomed and anticipated!!
Thank you in advance!

I'll break it down by paragraph:

Greetings.

I looks like I am need of help once again since 5 of my reviews got almost simultaneously rejected. Sorry for being such a burden.

"Spreading the Disease" by Anthrax.
Review title: "She'll take you to the very depths of hell"
Rejection message:
Review content :



"I'm Not Jesus" by Apocalyptica
Review title: Vengeance and perverted cellos
Rejection message:
Review content:


"Trance-Like State" by Dreamscape - a strange review, I admit.
Review title: "The sun breaks through the clouds of pain"
Rejection message:
Review content:

"Eye of the Beholder" by Metallica
Review title: In Black and White
Rejection message:
Review content:


"First Demo" by Anthrax
Review title: The flu before the anthrax
Rejection message:
Review content:

I did my best to describe the music. I tried to compare the albums (single/demo) to other releases or songs by the other bands, or to other releases by the same band, I did my best to use epithets... I mean I didn't write them superficially, I really spent several hours writing them. Any kind of criticism that could improve my skills is welcome... and even the one that wouldn't bring any improvement at all. I think I deserve it all. Thanks in advance.

Reviews like this took you hours to write, really?



You are asking us for help, but you haven't yet rewritten your work with the rejection messages in mind. Those really explain it all. Just to look at this Spreading the Disease one: It is of worrisome length to begin with, but this talks more about other bands and even other albums (WCFYA) more than the album you are supposed to be reviewing. There are a few descriptive lines buried in here, but this needs a total rewrite/restructuring.

Just like raspberrysoda, you are trying to pick what you perceive as easier targets like that Anthrax demo, but you have nothing of value to say. You just sputter around writing about band history that you clearly lack a comprehensive grasp of to begin with. Other times you try to be matter-of-fact and channel the Ultraboris rant template like on Eye of the Beholder, but it is so forced and insincere it is actually painful to read: "As the obsessed metalhead that I am, I have been listening to thousands of metal songs only in the last two years, the genres varying from symphonic, power and progressive metal to death, black and grindcore (on the metal side)..." That is one of the worst ways to open a review, and your off-base critique of "Breadfan" proves that your listening of thousands of metal songs in a short window gives you no perspective or valuable experience to draw off of. In short: you are critically overshooting your capabilities as both a writer and as a metalhead.

Yes, that review took me about two hours...

I did try to follow the suggestions of the rejection messages!

I've already told you I am not trying to apply Boris' style, at least not deliberately. I've read a lot of reviews in order to improve my skills and, inevitably, some styles influenced my own. Furthermore, I can't really figure out why you say it's insincere.

I'm working hard to improve my skills! I've said this so many times that writing it one more time annoys even me!

...Are you suggesting that I should simply give up reviewing?

If this is the end result of you working hard to improve your skills, possibly; at least here on MA. Like I suggested to raspberrysoda, write some reviews for Amazon, or somewhere without quality control. This way you will hopefully be able to improve in practice, but we can only hold your hand so much. We are not going to write your reviews for you.

You are welcome to continue this revolving door, but don't get annoyed with us when you hear the same criticisms over and over, since you are writing reviews that are continually flawed in the same ways. Imagine how annoyed I would be with moderating them if I didn't have endless patience.

I am going to rewrite my review on Anthrax's first demo but this time I will spend several days on it. If the final result also gets rejected then I will give up reviewing once and for all.

I appreciate the work that you, mods, do in order to keep the quality standards of this site a bit high. I was never annoyed by your rejecting my reviews, I was annoyed by my incapability of meeting the standards.

Well, that's so understandable! But... some of my reviews did get approved. How were they any better than the ones above?

I'll get to the reviews later, there's just too many to look at right now, but I wanted to speak to the last thing you said Lich. The reason is that different mods have different standards for what is and isn't acceptable. Diamhea is probably one of the tougher mods and, from what I can tell, pretty much dominates the reviews que. It's good though man, from the standpoint of MA; they don't want a bunch of shitty reviews clouding up the site.

Just remember that loads of people get their reviews rejected and that becoming a quality writer takes time and patience. That's the whole reason I publish fuck all except when there's a challenge going on. I have neither time or patience and writing stresses me out.

Ironically 5 out 6 reviews of mine were accepted by Diamhea, and only one by Metantoine.

It seems like English wasn't your first language and you're also rather new at this. Your reviews spend too much time in very short lengths just talking about other albums, making jokes or talking about what others think of the release. At the beginning of the Spreading the Disease one, you talk about "real ideas" versus "forcefully created ideas," which doesn't make sense and you don't really attempt to make any sense of it. The whole bulk paragraph of that review is spent comparing a 1980s album to a 2003 album, rather than just talking about the merits of the album you're reviewing.

In the Dreamscape review you spend waaaaay too much time trying to sound arty and make all these colorful phrases, but you barely even string together a coherent description of what the music sounds like or why it's good or bad. You're focusing too much on writing things you seem to think are clever, rather than actually reviewing the music - being clever shouldn't come first.

The Metallica one - you open up just talking all about yourself even though it's a rather droll story about how you've been listening to metal for only two years and bragging about having heard "thousands" of songs. Maybe just hold off and wait till you've been doing this longer to talk about that. You don't have much of a command of actually describing music in any meaningful way right now. You seem to just be focusing on theatrical writing and bullshitting around - just listen to the music and talk about it, quit mentioning other albums and trying to make jokes and telling anecdotes. That stuff can come later when you're more experienced.

And... how am I supposed to describe it without comparing it to other releases?

The ones you're comparing it to don't make sense and it's lame to spend so much time writing a review of an earlier album in a band's career and constantly talk about their later albums. If you were reviewing WCFYA and mentioning their earlier shit here and there, it'd be fine, but that's not what you're doing. The intro is just talking about how underrated they are, and the closing paragraph very hastily shoves in a quick line about lyrics and production which you easily could've done in detail instead and, you know, actually reviewed the music. The bulk of the review is just this:



Why talk about their later stuff in a review of an old 1980s classic? Their later stuff hadn't been written at that time, and it just comes off as confusingly anachronistic. If it was just a line slipped in, maybe it'd be fine, but there is zero value to the paragraph I quoted. Notice how you're not actually saying anything here. You're writing a lot of words, but none of it means anything about the music on the album you're supposed to be reviewing.

That's half of the body of your review. Then we get this, which is a hastily and poorly written description of how the music makes you feel:



It's not economical writing. You just kinda blather on.