Normally, since I work weekends, most of my reviews are written when things are slow (it they're slow). Weekdays are usually busy as hell around here, though. I started a review last night and wanted to continue going today, but, alas, phone calls prevail... I'll get back to it some time.

On another note, I'll be off for all of June. Two weeks of which, I will be out of town at accident reconstruction school. I'm taking my computer and my music and I plan on writing a few reviews.

Gunther's review of Species At War is pretty great, and it made me bust a smile or two. That introduction alone...

I was waiting for a review of the new Arckanum album and there it is, 95%. I've listened to most of it through 1 headphone while working or at home on terrible computer speakers so that makes it kind of hard to decide how much I like it... I definitely like it, but I ended up excluding it from my last order even though I know I will pick it up at some point. Curious to hear other peoples thoughts on this album though.

Sick6six: I haven't yet got around to checking it out. I've been trying to make up for some gaps in my death metal education lately, so I've largely neglected listening to new releases even from bands that I've actively followed for years. I liked the premiere song, but it was no Svarti or Þann Svartís.

Hey thanks, glad you liked it.

His new review of Down Among the Dead Men is cool too.

Haha, so just saw whoever put Sombres Foret's discog on Rockbox for download copied and pasted my review in the description.

Yeah, I've seen a couple of my reviews wind up as descriptions for stuff on that site, too. I told them I was fine with it being reused if they would mention where they got the review, but no such luck. Oh well, c'est l'internet.

That's cool, it's the best metal torrent site! That's some recognition!

I was actually extremely pumped when I saw my reviews quoted on a band page or in promo material. Monolithe used a quote from my review of III on their website. I feel like it's the equivalent of having a book published!

The only time that's happened to me with a bigger band is when Cryptopsy posted my review of their latest disc on their Facebook the day the album came out. That was pretty cool.

I think that bands nowadays are much more self-aware of "the power of MA", and a bit more seriously, how it's widespread and global. Therefore it should come as no surprise that it begins to be something normal for bands to do. It's good publicity when you have a positive review on any website, let alone here.

Sectu really liked what I said about Gerra when I put it on my year-end list last year. I was super excited about that until I went to their Facebook page and saw that they clearly just google themselves daily and post every positive mention they can find

Subrick spitted on Beyond Creation, that's ok since I think they're really overrated but he named his new Lecherous Nocturne review "How to properly make modern technical death metal" Is it me or that's totally ridiculous? LN is the Blackguard of tech death, they're the run of the mill band of the genre.

I saw them open for Cannibal Corpse, but I don't remember much about them. Haven't heard them in studio though...

One of the funniest things I've ever witnessed at a metal show was when I saw Lecherous Nocturne open for...someone (I've seen them open for more death metal shows than I care to remember) at a Baltimore show. The bassist is standing there, bassing, trying to look like a badass while the band plays its retarded so-tech-you-can't-even-hear-it death metal mishmash and the fucking guy starts sweep picking, with absolutely zero audible effect on the band's sound. I almost pissed myself laughing. Later in the same set:

Obnoxious Lecherous Nocturne frontman: "Let's hear some noise!"
Crowd: *crickets*
OLNf: "I guess this is the kind of show where you've gotta shout THE RAVENS SUCK to get a reaction?"
Crowd: *crickets*
Guy in back of crowd: "The Ravens DO suck!"

Fucking awful band.

Really Subrick, really?!

I've never seen Lecherous Nocturne live but I did see Chris Lollis live with Nile. That guy throws such a Phil Anselmo on you that you just want to beat him silly. He's really the obnoxious pseudo tough guy persona. LC is pretty standard stuff, much like Sickening Horror is for Kollias. Nothing to write home about.

As I said in the review, they're influenced enough by normal death metal to where it just sounds and feels a lot better than some other bands. The production quality of the album being the way it is helps a lot too.

My review of the new Svartsyn album was qouted on their facebook. Feels good that ones writing gets mentioned in a positive sense.

This album might tickle your fancy Subrick, as the new LN (don't know why I spelled it LC before...) reminds me of it. The last Mithras and the first Ulcerate also come to mind, and it does run its course rather rapidly. I can see where you're coming from with the "more death metal based" argument too.

With that being said I fail to find interesting riffs or memorable sections in it. Sure the template is more enjoyable in your view, at least when compared to other modern tech death bands, but where are the cool riffs and memorable moments?! The bass can be heard very well, although I'd like for it to be just a tiny bit louder as it does some cool stuff every now and then. Lollis vocals are pretty meh though, can't stand the guy. Like a higher pitched Mike Di Salvo really. It grates on the ears after a while.

I'm pretty sure I won't listen to this one again. If I want a cacophony of such sort I'd rather spin Whisper Supremacy, which I think is what I'm going to do!

Well for one there's the Marduk moment in Ouroboros Chains that I mentioned in the review. There's also the opening to Judgments And Curses that gets repeated near the end of the song. There are memorable passages that stay with you after a few listens, because like I said in the review the songs do run together a bit on the first couple listens.

As for Usipian, I listened to the songs An Everborn and Dead Reckoning. I quite enjoyed them. Nowhere near as spastic as LN is with section changes and whatnot, but still pretty good. It reminded me of some Incantation actually; Dead Reckoning in particular reminded me of Dying Divinity.

When I took a run through Unique Leader's releases around March, LN was the only one I judged not worth a thorough look. Not that everyone having the exact opposite taste of you has any relevance to the actual review though.

Lecherous Creation

What's really weird is Dopelord put my review up on their facebook, and my review said it was average and even kind of predictable. I mean it wasn't negative, but it wasn't all that positive either.

Mine ended with saying that it wasn't their best album to date but better than the predecessor. Guess any word of it that is nor a total bash is good words.

I'm sure this has been discussed many times, but I find it very interesting and amusing going through some reviews of classic albums like Immortal and Darkthrone's first 3 (BM albums). All these 90+ and then the couple 0-30. Of course most of the reviews are pretty old and most likely won't sway anyone unless they are just discovering black metal, but it's fun to see the complete 180 of some peoples opinions/tastes. Most of the bad reviews seem at least valid in the reviewer's mind

Wow, that first Summoning review really makes me lose faith in mankind. Call me a butthurt fanboy, but I'm actually wondering if the review should even be accepted.



Saying that the entire album is "basically" made up of intros/interludes is blatantly incorrect; Summoning have pretty much always had fairly straightforward song structures, and the new album is no exception. And saying that the album doesn't invoke feelings usually associated with black metal is entirely the point of the album. Summoning have long tried to distance themselves from the black metal scene and have repeated over and over in interviews that the band is no longer black metal.

Well, it does kinda suck when a 7 year stretch between albums happens from a respected band and the first review of the album to break that period is a 10% review and has "Being previously unacquainted with the band's music..." in it.

Also, Winterfylleth has never once came across to me as "medieval".

I really think that ignorance towards a band you're reviewing/general retardation should be legitimate grounds for rejection. Seriously, though, this review is terrible in every way.

I agree with that most of the time, such as with this review. It's pretty terrible, I guess he was expecting old school Darkthrone or something? Come on!

I love especially how he complains about stuff and is like, "this sounds almost like it was programmed!" Here's my review of Skepticism's Stormcrowfleet done in the same style:

Doom? - 10%

Skepticism is a rather respected band in the doom metal underground. I've never listened to the band before but it's usually a good idea to start at the beginning of a band's discography, so I decided to give their debut album Stormcrowfleet a listen in order to understand all of the hubbub behind this groundbreaking doom band.

The album starts off with several minutes of intro, or at least so I thought. It turns out the whole album is like this! There are these supposedly epic-sounding orchestral parts that are so poorly done they sound like they're being played by some sort of organ or some nonsense, which totally ruins the feeling. Also, whenever the vocalist tries to sing he winds up making this low grunting sound.

And the riffs? Nearly every riff on this album is incredibly slow, like these guys didn't know how to play their instruments at all. We all know that doom metal = Black Sabbath but I couldn't really detect any bluesy Sabbath riffs on this album anywhere. In fact, this sounded almost more like mournful, slow death metal with a dark ambient influence, which was totally not what I was expecting from a doom metal album and is bad and wrong. Where are the Pentagram riffs? Where are the soaring Messiah Marcolin vocals?

This is so bad, it's like the death of doom as a genre. They should call this funeral doom or something and be done with it.

That really hits the nail on the head. I think that Summoning has done much better, but this guy makes it really obvious he has no idea what he's talking about. This line especially made me cringe: "As for the epic part I guess those criteria are met by the Tolkien-lyrics, but Blind Guardian already covered that in better fashion".

He wanted frostbitten Nordic winter landscapes from a Summoning album...I only have ever heard this new album, and even when I had heard nothing from them, I knew what to expect. Zodi's negative review of Summoning was pretty well done I suppose but this one is just everything bad about a negative review.

Ugh. The first fucking review. The FIRST fucking review for what is probably one of the best albums of the year. I'm sorry, I know I'm a giant fucking fanboy but, goddamn, most of the time you get a few simpering 100%ers before ignoramuses descend on a great album.

We got 2 positive reviews (95% and 100%) but we had to reject them, sadly

I can't say I'm not feeling the slightest bit of schadenfreude with the Summoning fans throwing in how "it's such a great album!" along with their (valid) complaints with the review, as if that's somehow a measurable ground for rejection

Really though, the review is fine, but the reviewer himself clearly had no idea what he was getting himself in to, and he let misguided expectations sour his view. Going into a Summoning album and expecting black metal is like going to watch Transformers 3 and expecting subtle political commentary. So it's just yet another victim of "technically acceptable review that happens to also be kinda dumb/misses the point".

I feel that 0% is a pretty damn strong opinion, and unless the music is truly awful but also extremely one-dimensional, I think handing out a 0% warrants a pretty in-depth review. Zodi's review of Let Mortal Heroes... annoys me on this front, but his musical description is mostly pretty accurate. I disagree with his thoughts on the vocals sounding weak and the guitars sounding like synths (I might have agreed with him if he was reviewing a different Summoning album, but I think the guitars on that one sound really rich and forceful) but otherwise I think a reader could get a decent idea of what the music sounds like based on his review and could therefore safely conclude that Zodi is just not at all a fan of Summoning's music. It's just not the case at all with this new review, though, where it seems he just missed the point entirely.

It's technically okay, yeah, but should we really let dumbass reviews that miss the point entirely keep slipping by? Not that I'm trying to tell you guys how to do your jobs, but it's one thing to say 'it's boring, the production sucks, etc.' and give it a 10%, and another thing to basically take an apple and review it as an orange, and give it a 10%. Just kind of a slippery slope I suppose.

This is another thing I've been talking about for ages, not sure how this kind of thing manages to pass if it shows the reviewer has absolutely zero idea what he's doing. There have been quite a few examples of stuff like this that melt my brain in the past. caspian's The Perfect Element

It's an incredibly irritating blend of seemingly inoffensive components that are put together in a manner which makes an otherwise orthodox format an unfortunate displeasure to witness. Such a lack of refinement, of broadcasting grating naivety, was perhaps acceptable in the 1990s as this was becoming a more precise art form, but to publish garbage like this in this age is inexcusable. It deserves nothing less than mockery. I have offered one disdainful response in the past, but this certainly deserves another.