Because the band's imagery and (admittedly "prettied up" and black-metalised) arrangements take a LOT of influence from the Middle Ages. Example, one of the ex-band members pseudonym was Neidhart von Reuental. The interludes on Aria... include the band's own versions of selected pieces from the famous Cantigas de Santa Maria musical manuscript from the 13th century, and a version of a piece by French composer Gautier de Coincy (from the 12th and 13th centuries as well).

Baroque music is something that hadn't existed until the 17th century, and by then there had been many changes in European music already, such as the convenient major/minor key systems we use a lot today. You also had fairly common chord progressions that you wouldn't find at all in the Middle Ages, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Frq7rjEGzs this kind of stuff ain't on Aria bro

Also it's part of my nature to get nerdy about early European music , so sorry if I seemed like a snobby dick to any of you gents.

If it helps to lower your blood pressure, give me a better word or short phrase to describe that era of music and I'll happily replace it.

Medieval!

Done. World peace has been restored.

Hey, finally another review for that Death Angel album! Seems like a nice write-up, but something's missing... 7.8/10 not enough HORSE COCK

I just took the bookends to mean that they're a completely irrelevant band and that will never change, nothing wrong with that statement to me. I liked the review plenty, as it helped me understand that Dawnbringer is still piddling away the talent they clearly have with droning nothing-songs. Nucleus had some great riffs but I don't remember much of the album, and Sungod has like one good song and a bunch of mid paced boring stuff. Z's review did the job perfectly because now I know exactly what the album is like and whether it's worth checking out for a guy like me who shares a similar opinion to him on their previous stuff.

I mostly just take objection to the idea that I was somehow deluding myself into thinking the album was good. Not the case at all.

If you deluded yourself, how would you know?

Well maybe I'm just reaching for defenses here, but isn't that the unspoken implication like half the time you think something is awful? Either you can say it's just not your taste, or you think it's unlistenable/completely worthless crap. If the latter, and it has fans, well you'd have to figure that they're actively tricking themselves since it's not a matter of your taste being the issue, no?

I dunno, even if I say I think something is unlistenable or worthless, the implication is still that it's just my opinion and it's all taste, I think. I never really think anyone's actually deluding themselves. Though I realize in cases like the review we're currently discussing, it's a hyperbolic device and just something people sort of do sometimes.

Somebody has clearly never listened to Twelve Foot Ninja.

The only thing I take from this whole conversation is that BH doesn't like Into the Lair of the Sungod, which makes him an objectively worse person that the rest of us

Yeah I'm just being a dick at this point. Perhaps it will provoke someone to actually write an opinion that amounts to more than just "Well I think it's good/nice".

Nice review for Hate Eternal, MikeyC. It doesn't sound biased at all and has a respectable amount of explanation. I think the guy on the cover looks more like Ryan Reynolds.

Glad you like it, mate. I can see nobody but Ben Affleck there, haha.

Perhaps.


Are you wondering where the errors are, or how to fix your poxy computer glitches that foil your attempts to capitalize song titles?

2Eagle33's reviews, while well-written and detailed, are hard as hell to read. Cut back on the idiosyncratic and complicated syntax dude, it's making my head spin.

Great Horrorscope review by stainedclass2112. I agree with pretty much everything. Closest I've ever come to giving 100% to an album but "Bare Bones" makes the album dip ever so slightly in the middle. The rest is all killer no filler.

Thanks a bunch, Dia! That means a lot! It's definitely one of my favorite metal albums, my one tiny nitpick would be the ending of "New Machine". I love that song, but the ending kind of drags on a bit. At least in my opinion. I happen to enjoy "Bare Bones" a lot now, especially since I used to dislike it when I first heard the album.

New Machine is one of my favorite OVERKILL songs period, definitely my favorite of their more mid-paced, groovy style

colin040 named his Virgin Steele review from last year "Nocturds of Hellfire and Dumbnation." It hit me that he could've made something with hellfire, as "Nocturds of Smellfire and Dumbnation." Then it hit me, he could've gone for the full poop trifecta and called it "Nocturds of Smellfire and Dumpnation."

D

That's because a lot of people that don't like a certain album don't even bother to review it, which causes the scores to be unbalanced.

?

Well, nobody is forced to review something they don't wanna review so I'd say it is generally accepted. I'm a bit guilty of this myself because I'd rather not go through all the torment of listening to shitty album just to write a review.

True, I stopped reading about halfway when there was still nothing but fluff and namedropping.

That Possessed review is a perfect example of why you shouldn't just fire off negative reviews for stuff that you don't know what you're talking about. Having a few too many 90% reviews might not be very informative but it's better than bullshitty faux-contrarian negative reviews that are poorly reasoned/written.

Seven Churches "tries to straddle two genres"? Yeah, because death metal definitely was a thing back then, wasn't it? It's not like they're one of the pioneers of the fucking style or anything.

Yeah I only managed two or three paragraphs before the revisionist Borisisms just melted my brain. Exodus was the first extreme band because they formed in 1979, pay no attention to the fact that their recordings in the early 80s were, just like Metallica and Slayer and Anthrax and Overkill and essentially everybody else in the scene at the time, not really exactly what we know as thrash today and was more NWOBHM + Motorhead, but hey ya know, gotta up that thrash cred by claiming that Exodus was all MURDER IN THE FRONT ROW from the 70s onwards. I managed to read the rest of the review and he actually goes on to say that the riffs are very good and the vocals are great. Basically his only complaints are that the production sucks, the drums aren't very good, and the next album was better. I mean, yeah if the production is so bad and the percussion is so sloppy that you find it to be completely unlistenable then sure, go ahead and give it a bad score, but giving it an 18% and making ridiculous claims right at the beginning before kinda backtracking on how bad it is by the end shows that it was written in one go and at least half of it was pulled out of his ass just to make a statement of some sort.

Hey newbies, don't be like this guy. Make sure you know what you're talking about first, that's really my only advice when starting to review, because that alone fixes almost every problem you could have.

EDIT: Relistening to Seven Churches right now for the first time in years (because despite my love for that early style of death metal when it was just extremely dirty thrash with deep growling vocals, I was never a huge fan of it), and it really doesn't sound any different than any other late 80s/early 90s band in that regard. I get the feeling this dude doesn't listen to a whole lot of this genre in the first place if this is too rough for him.

I just think the cherry on top of this review is the title "You won't like this review." Gee, doesn't sound at all like a plea for attention...

Exodus as extreme metal pioneers? On the plus side, at least the review is mercifully shorter than what I expected.

Well I'm glad my reviews are getting recognized in one way or another.

And yeah, that Possessed review is downright silly. Too much pseudo history lessons and the whole thing comes off as a review to rather piss people off.

That's the greatest irony in UltraBoris' MoP review; he slags the album off not necessarily because of the music alone, but because of the bad influence it had over thrash (and therefore genres influenced by thrash, I reckon) in how it spawned so much wrongheaded imitation, but this exact thing has happened with that review itself. Every idiot newbie these days comes here trying to out-Boris Boris like it's some cool thing to do. Bring back fanboy gushing and overused 100% scores, please. Also annoying, but at least the previous generation of n00bs weren't trying so hard to be insufferable edgelord assholes.

Yeah and as hyperbolic and ridiculous as Boris' review was, he wasn't exactly wrong in his review either. At the very least, that dude seemed to live and breathe metal and really had a grasp over what he was talking about. He was also before the internet became a big downloading thing, too - the kids imitating him now can just download seven bands' discographies in an afternoon while eating snacks at home and then try to imitate Boris. It's bullshit really. I get the impulse to be funny and edgy, see any of my five or six-year old Cinema Freaks reviews, but you have to know when you're in over your head.

A shit review with a click-bait title.

DeadMuse seems promising so far...

Props to UberNoodle for his Ancient Myth review. Still awaiting my CD in the mail - since the postal strike is delayed, I should get it next week. I may have to get the Japanese digital version too though. God that album is a convoluted mess with all its versions - it was a bit of a pain adding it here and was one of those moments where I really appreciate that multiple versions feature.

Good job Lich and Napalm on the Hermh reviews!

Thanks.

Why thank you! Where did your one go?