http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/P ... ard/347132

The whole review was pretty bad but this part made me bust up laughing.

"It reminds me so much of the famous ant death scene of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull..."

And why is his opinion on the artwork stuck in between paragraphs describing the music?

Everyone's just following my lead.

I hate anyone calling anything 'proto'-anything ("Hellhammer are proto-extreme metal", for example). But this guy's saying that Sad Wings of Destiny isn't heavy metal proper?!

Well I mean it's a pretty bluesy album, all things considered. I obviously don't agree with him but I can see why he wouldn't call it a heavy metal album.

I always considered it a metal album in the same way any of those old 70s ones were - in a way that the genre wasn't completely formed yet and the boundaries just weren't defined or set in stone.

That review is just dumb because it's like he's retroactively penalizing Saxon for not immediately pushing the boundaries right out of the gate with their first album rather than just getting better later. I get the idea his idea of cliche comes from looking at all the music released since then.

My man Metal_Thrasher90 has done it again...completely destroyed his credibility with his review of Denim and Leather. I know that the whole "I was there" argument does not fly here but it has merit in some instances. He has no idea what the metal environment was like when that album came out. I cut school and stood in line waiting for the record store to open to get that fucker. He has no idea that metal was finding it's own identity instead of just being considered a form of hard rock in 1981.

Once again, he is basing his review on a heavy metal that's been in existence for 20 some years before he started to write reviews instead of what was actually going on at that time. So yeah, I'm calling him out on this review because he had to have been there to truly appreciate this album for what it was...and still is. If that's bad form for pulling the "I was there" card then so be it. You don't review a classic album like that unless you know what it felt like when it came out! 31% my old ass.

Yeah I think tvtropes has a page for that ("Seinfeld Effect" or something like that), where because other bands caught on to that idea, the originators are retroactively called generic for shit they invented. I used to do that too when I was 14.

EDIT: Also wait he also goes on about how all these new bands are lame because they just do what the old guard did without anything new doesn't he? So the people who made the metal were just generic and the people who came later were just generic ripoffs. So... does he even like metal?

That's some powerful bullshit. A review is not supposed to be an objective measurement of the value of an album according to some well-defined, universal criteria. The point of writing about a piece of art and publishing it is to produce something that people will find worth reading, and if it does that and meets the criteria for being a review, then it's a good review.

There can be more than one valid perspective on an album. He can write a review removed from the cultural context, and you can write a review based on your personal experience of being there when it came out, and they can both be good reviews that contain something of value for the reader, or perhaps for different readers. Because guess what, I am removed from the cultural context. If I just wanna know whether the album still holds up and how good it is in the present day to a new listener, his review could be exactly what I need. Maybe it's not - I haven't actually read it - but that particular criticism is garbage.

I'm sorry but that criticism is not bullshit. That's why reviewing classic albums is such a big deal and one should tread lightly when doing so. It's very hard to objectively review a 34 year old metal album when there has been so many years and so many different ideas that have come about in metal since that time. Back then there were a handful of bands doing metal. If you were not there to feel the atmosphere and did not feel the magic that album had when it came out, then maybe you should think twice before reviewing. If you are reviewing a classic like Denim and Leather you need to wash all the other metal that came later out of your ears and be completely objective. That's hard to do when your basing the album's staying power on what the hundreds of bands that came later and refined the genre accomplished. How does it hold up? It holds up fine....unless you do remove the cultural context.

It's like you only read the first four words of my post and then replied to that, because I've already refuted your entire post. Maybe you should explain specifically what I said that you disagree with.

I agree that there is the possibility to write an objective review outside of the cultural context of the time in which the album was released....he has not done so. That writer has a history of revisionist history and an incessant need to compare everything to this bygone age in which he was never a part. And now he takes a classic from that time and cuts it a new asshole...not being objective but basing it on what his ears hear now. He can't have it both ways.

For you to say that my criticism is garbage without first reading the review is a bit like saying you don't like something you've never tasted. So you refuted nothing. Read the review, read the other reviews, and listen to the album for yourself. Then you can blast whatever I have said to you....at least you'll have an opinion based on something.

Here's a point I don't understand.



The first track is an instant classic for these reasons, but the rest of the album is horribly underwhelming for the same reasons? The reasoning seems contradictory to me, like he's judging and writing faster than he can make sense of it. The review is more conflicting than cogent.

It also is one of those cases where the score doesn't quite match the review. A 31%, to me, would mean it's a fucking horrid mess. But, yeah, this is a quite conflicting review. As BastardHead said, he claims that the new bands are just ripping off the classic bands but then the classic bands are mediocre? This review is a mess.

re: reviewing old albums, I think the best approach is: "do you enjoy it, and if not- why?" If other bands have improved on the sound- say so. If you think that Di'Anno or whatever just can't sing for shit and that the production sucks- say so. If there's still some catchy, enjoyable riffs that get you going- say so. If it just sounds dated and you don't enjoy it- say so! Delicacy and tact and cultural context are for old men and/or ladies.

It wasn't until casp's post that it dawned on me that mjollnir is now harping on outside context, when before we had a huge debate wherein he championed the idea of looking at each album in its own little microcosm, with everything else the band has ever done or other bands have done prior or later being irrelevant. Now all the sudden it's bad to do that because MT90 just ripped a classic. I can't keep track of anybody's opinions anymore.

Splitting hairs much BH? My opinion didn't change at all. Quite the contrary....the cultural context of an album is part of that album's microcosm. If you look at what I said earlier, I said that, "you need to wash all the other metal that came later out of your ears and be completely objective" when reviewing a classic. The atmosphere in which this album came out has nothing to do with what other bands were doing but everything to do with how fresh and new this music was and how fresh and new this album was. And then he assumes he knows the atmosphere in which the album came out because then he makes ridiculous statements like this....

This is someone assuming he knows what was going on back then. Princess of the Night was the only song ever played on American radio and even that lasted about a minute. What market did they conquer? When you don't know something it's best to not to act like you do.

First you criticize him because you think the purpose of his review should be to be "objective" (i.e. come from the same cultural background as yours) rather than to examine what the album has to offer to new listeners. Then you criticize me because you think the purpose of my post should have been to defend his review rather than discuss an idea. Have you considered the possibility that maybe all your opinions are based on your completely arbitrary preconceptions of how things should be?

Obviously there's something to be said for awareness of context. It would (most of the time) be incorrect to say that a massively influential album is bad art, but there's nothing wrong with saying that it's dated and not worthwhile to people who weren't there, and there's nothing wrong with giving it a low score because of that.

Although I don't necessarily agree with Metal_Thrasher90's opinions, I find still the reviews entertaining to read, as they're super long and give a very different perspective on the music most of the time. I'm torn, because some of the things he says are very ridiculous, but they ARE his opinions. J_Ason has a very good point there. But what do I know, I'm one of the lowest rated reviewers as well.

Emphasis added. Guess what album?

Funny if it turned out to be for TSoP.

Edit: What do you know..I was right!!

Just kidding. I knew all along. Saw it the same time I saw the Denim and Leather review.

They definitely give a different perspective, but I don't find them entertaining to read at all. Even his Overkill ones, which I was actually pretty excited for once he started, were just parroting all of the expected fare save for the ridiculously low rating for Taking Over compared to the rest (he only tackled the first 5). He writes such long reviews, but rarely actually says anything meaningful outside of this sort of universal framework he applies to all of his work, which apparently is the forebear of his insanely stilted scoring system.

Orbitball has been publishing reviews here for five years and has not only not improved at all, but has gotten worse. He has even discovered a new way of fucking its/it's by writing its'. Some key quotes from recent reviews:



Way deepy insight!



Very bad.



This reads like it was run through Babelfish or Google Translate. I'd suspect that if it was from a new reviewer, but it's just perplexing seeing this from someone who has published nearly 200 reviews here since 2010.

Yeah, his rating system is weird. It seems like nothing is ever just ok or pretty good. It's either amazing, like in the 90 percent area or its absolutely horrible and gets a zero. There's not a lot of grey space for his rating system.

Also, I noticed the same thing with Orbitball's reviews. On a side note I have a hard time visualizing a 66 year old female listening to Cannibal Corpse (based off of the profile information).

That's his mom. Don't ask.

I don't really care about percentage ratings, but the writing quality is just awful.

Haha. Yeah, orbitball is terrible. Outside of his generic choice of reviews and his inability to write correctly, what he says just plain sucks.



About Deicide's latest... A band known for being slow, right? And "experimentation"?

MT90 is entitled to his opinions, but he's wrong anyway and Denim and Leather is a stone classic. Caspian had it right...just fucking say you don't like it, don't try to go all historical revisionist. Caspian's review of Mob Rules I disagree with completely, and Ozzy's review of Iron Maiden's debut, but those are both at least just honest with why they don't like it. You can't just come into a classic album and start pretending it's not a classic, history disagrees with you. Instead of getting historically revisionist, just say "I don't like this, the songs are boring, too soft, not exciting, etc." I'd still disagree, but at least it wouldn't be pompous bullshit.

Oh MT_90, what have you gotten yourself into now? Having an unfavorable view on Denim and Leather, I see?



Look, I get it, there's some radio-friendly stuff on here, but there was also some radio-friendly stuff on Strong Arm of the Law and Wheels of Steel as well. Don't like it? Think that it's ruining the music? Get used to it. Saxon has done a lot of it even before they "sold out". Don't hate an album (and give it a low rating) because of a few songs that sound a little "goofy" to you, okay? Even those songs have some amount of aggression in them. They're melodic to some extent, yes, but they're not exactly "quiet". I'd say that giving Denim and Leather a 31% rating and saying those things would be jumping to an absurd conclusion too early. Here's a word of advice to you MT_90, if you've got an unpopular opinion, but you don't have the legitimate claims to back it up (which you don't), don't say anything about it at all. I learned my lesson the hard way when I tried to review a Meshuggah album on here. My review kept getting rejected 'cos I couldn't find the right words to describe my opinion on how I thought the music worked. By making that bold claim, you're just asking for the whole of MA to come hounding you like a pack of hungry wolves. I could go on and on and on with this, but I feel like I have to restrain myself, so I'm just gonna stop here.

Makes me think of those Yelp reviews giving one star for bad service.

The whole review comes down to this, but never demonstrates how the 'vision' or 'inspiration' that helped the two former albums disappeared in this one, or how it "couldn’t match the energy and grace of the previous couple of albums". All we hear is how it's more of the same! --







Besides, I thought Saxon's music was designed with "sophistication"?




Examples? You later praise them for their "cheerful, spontaneous, accessible lyrics"! Classics like 'Denim and Leather' and 'And the Bands Played On' have those wonderfully straightforward lyrics, sung in "the real language of man". I don't find any lyrics particularly embarrassing.


P-p-polite?


Well, it's an anthem! I can personally attest to the power of it: only three weeks ago, I celebrated my birthday with a party themed "Denim and Leather". Every three or so tracks I played the final chorus repeat from Denim and Leather, either in the original studio version, a live version or the re-recorded version. By the end the crowd was joyfully singing (.. shouting) along. Every time I wear a Saxon shirt people start signing it again. It's a very effective anthem -- it still rouses. It has lasting power, which your historical approach would never admit to.


You know, if you want to cover Saxon's whole career in your far-seeing historical perspective you'd do well not to dismiss them this easily. What about the legendary comeback record Unleash the Beast? What of the new, heavier Saxon, growing and growing once more? Actually, they're coming to this country for a second time this year, again playing classics from Wheels of Steel, Strong arm of the Law and Denim and Leather with packed crowds and considerable ticket prices (with few complaints!). So much for a 5-minute wonder.

Such a shame to dismiss Denim and Leather with a 31% rating, and then to dismiss the entire band outright. It doesn't really line up with the 51% score for their debut, does it? At least he likes Raven!

Look, if you're really that desperate for any sort of "sophistication", you're really not gonna find it on a lot of NWOBHM albums like Denim and Leather. NWOBHM isn't all that complex of a subgenre, and while there may be a few exceptions, like Iron Maiden, there aren't a whole lot of bands that play extremely sophisticated stuff.

Unlike some of the other not-so-great recent reviewers mentioned in this thread, my beef with Mr. Binky there lies almost entirely with his writing being just, well, fucking miserable stuff. The opinions and content are usually passable but oftentimes his ludicrously clunky sentence structure and dry as silica gel packets prose make my forebrain vomit into my aftbrain. Binks, you should seriously consider just trying to write your reviews in a much more natural, conversational tone, maybe more along the lines of your posts in this very thread. Your recent posts in this thread are a thousand times less aneurysm-inducing than some of your reviews.

I know, I was referring to MetalTrasher's comment in his review of Saxon's debut, which is quoted directly below that remark:

this type of reviewing should get people insta-Dursted. Also, the whole "it's overrated" style needs to be shot in the goddamn knee and left to wither.

Thanks, imntbatman, I'll keep that in mind.

Thing #1. The TSoP excerpt Zodi posted, thought it was NSV all the way haha.

Thing #2. Just gonna weigh in on this whole Saxon ordeal. Firstly, MT90 fucked up despite what I'm going to say, I know nothing about Saxon or this album, but from what I've seen of him he straight up makes up his own little histories and relevances based of.. I dunno, some shit. He straight up manufactures and makes absurd links between completely unrelated things so he thinks he looks smart. Now, with that said, fuck context. One my favourite things about music is that it's genuinely timeless. Things released now are directly comparable to things that came out 30 years ago. Music doesn't "spoil". I've reviewed a few games and stuff, and those things you really need to keep track of when things came out to be fair, looking at something like System Shock 2 requires you to factor in it's release frame to be fair to the way movement feels and how complicated and clunky the controls are. Music doesn't have that, riffs, melodies, energy remain the same always. So I do not give one slightest skidmark of a shit about what the relevance of an album is when I'm listening to it. I'm not a heavy metal guy, so I can't comment too much on this specific case, but say, Illusions by Sadus doesn't need me to take note of where thrash was in 1988 and the fact it came out after Slayer got big, its riffs hold up as superior to me, the extra relevancy and originality of RiB doesn't make it more enjoyable. Altars of Madness is undeniably one of the biggest influences and genre building for most if not all of my favourite bands, but that doesn't matter because I don't find it compelling or interesting. Music is something to be listened to, everything else is irrelevant. If people came along later and did it better, too bad, thanks for giving the idea, first band.

tl;dr Casp is right, "do I like it? why/why not" is all that matters.

Can I jump on the Orbitball thing? What he wants to say isn't necessarily bad but what's up with the sentence structure? It's almost like I never stopped reviewing!

"[statement 1] , [but / though , etc] [statement 2]"

And I've been blasting the song "The Eagle Has Landed" 12 times in a row today.

In completely unrelated news, whenever I browse old reviews by certain people nowadays, I get a nice voice effect i them.

You know those reviews with "-5% for the lack of bass, +5% for the keyboard solo..." etc. reviews? Well, whenever I see one today, I always read it with a certain voice in my head. And that voice always goes "...five points to Gryffindor!" at some point.

Don't think about Dumbledore when reading anything like that, people! Once it starts, it will never go away.

Great. Now all I can think about is Richard Harris!Dumbledore whispering, "Screw this shit...with...a jackhammer~"

sample that shit and call it Dumblecore