Its always nice to see a new Forgotten Silence review. They're quite an underrated, oddball band.

Good review for the new Amorphis by ElfJuice, totally agree Joutsen has become one of the best death metal vocalists I can think of. And he is on another level with Under the Red Cloud, where all his vocals are concerned. As for the complaint about the choruses not being catchy enough - personally I was instantly hooked by half of them, and they are all damn memorable! It's much more catchy than Circle, actually.

it is not a band that can be written about easily. I still have their second album here, but I find it difficult to make up mind about whether I should like it or not.

Well, I don't know what's so bad about Anathema. They've been playing this kind of alternative rock for almost twenty years now and I like it way more than their death/doom stuff (coming from a death/doom metal fan). What do you exactly mean by "ball-less"? I'll take it for KsE though, they've been releasing Alive or Just Breathing over and over again since that album came out and they haven't even been able to top such a great album. I disagree about Anathema though.
Weather Systems was great for me, even better than the newer Distant Satellites so I don't see what's so bad about it. 2% was quite exaggerated and over the top for me

When I refer to an album as 'having balls' or 'lacking balls', it is an overarching feeling that is present throughout an album. In the case of extreme examples like The Great Southern Trendkill, the sheer conviction and anger the band members possessed seeped its way into every fibre of that album's being. Sometimes it is limited to one specific band member's performance, or a specific song.

When I judge an album based on its 'balls', I mean how convicted the band members sound while playing. This doesn't mean the music has to be angry, highly depressive and nihilistic funeral doom acts or mopey yet particularly good gothic acts can still perform with conviction. It is all to do with how 'real' the music sounds, taking into account physical performances, the effort put in, the emotions the music tries to conjure vs. its true effect, and thus allows me to gauge how the band felt when making the music and how they feel about that album and their music in general. Is it a passion? Is it a chore to them? Is it for the money? Stuff like that.

In any case, a lack of 'balls' means that the music sounds half-arsed in its execution and the atmosphere it gives off is one of 'well, lets make yet another album' vs. 'This album is going to be fucking cool! I love it!'. The emotion it tries to conjure up feels 'plastic' and fake in nature. A great example is emo music - it is the same sort of atmosphere that gothic music has (and I hate goth) but in a really marketable, contrived and frankly whiny fashion.

I am sure I sound pretentious as fuck here, and I am even more certain that writing off an album based on something so nebulous as 'feelings' seems like a questionable decision to some. However, if I didn't do that, sterile exercises in technicality would slip through the net as 'groundbreaking' and phoned-in, competent yet completely soulless tripe would be passed off as mediocre rather than the completely hollow shells that they really are. Music with personality, music with the balls to intentionally push forth a certain emotion to its listeners, music that takes on a sonic equivalent of its creator's souls - that is good metal.

THAT is what I mean by 'ball-less'.

And no, an album does not need heaps of atmosphere to be any good, so long as it doesn't sound emaciated and hollow to these ears, that is fine. Any extra emotion in the music is just extra points in my books, but it is not necessary.

People write off albums on nebulous feelings all the time, man, it isn't a big deal. But it does make for a shit review if you don't actually work to analyze the music even when you dislike it.

It's hard to talk about music with balls, conviction or personality or whatever. I mention this kind of stuff quite a bit, but it's not really something I can quantify - it's just part of knowing why I like or dislike something, and it's not really something I have rules thought out for. It's interesting to hear when an artist really hates an album the fans like, like Leif Edling with Candlemass's Ancient Dreams - goes to show you you can't judge what a band was thinking or feeling in the studio, which is why I quit talking about a band "not being into it" or "not sounding convincing" a lot of the time. You just never know.

It is difficult to quantify, hence I only really mention it if 'the feels' (or a lack of) are really, strongly there.

Yeah, I kind of understand what you mean by ball-less. We think about it the same way when it comes to the "let's make yet another album vs this is gonna be a fucking cool" part, but it seems we don't find examples in the same bands. This is very subjective however, because while I may find an album to have really big fucking balls, you'll probably find that very same album ball-less at the same time. So it's pretty much a matter of the ears that are listening. I gather from what you said that you're not fond of gothic stuff and I assume that it lacks some balls while I think the exactly opposite. At least this was what I understood and a bit of my own opinion about it.

Are you sure with this title? I read only about Chapter VI as the biggest Elding's musical self-destruction.

well, arbitrary ball-less ness or not, there's still a lot of other stuff to hate about the album, which I feel like I mentioned fairly clearly in the review. The keyboardist is awful, whether he's pianolating or playing some really bad strings, the vocal/lyric package is full of cheese, the guitar tone is super wimpy (I feel like, "whole album wimpiness" aside, this is something that could be quite easily measured), none of the songs go anywhere that's terribly interesting, and that there's a few billion bands doing things that are similiarish but way better.

And yeah, initially I was thinking of a 20%, but after listening to it back again for the review, it was an easy decision to drop it down to 2%. There's a lot of albums that I've given approx. 10% to that I'd prefer to this album.

I dunno, I haven't heard that one. But he doesn't like Ancient Dreams much at all, considers it a failure. But most fans love it, including myself.

In a curious move, Master_Of_Thrash appears to have deleted all of his reviews. I know your reviews weren't the best man, but they weren't bad by any stretch (barring the odd ill-advised comment here and there).

Haha, what a loser. One of the quickest ways to lose your integrity around here.

He can't even stand by what he wrote, the sign of a guilt ridden reviewer. Have some guts, dammit.

I'm not gonna sit here and rip him to shreds for it or anything, lord knows everything I wrote in 2008 was utter trash, I just never bothered deleting them because I don't see the point. I was 17/18 when I started reviewing but I certainly wasn't new to metal, I've been listening to heavy music in some form my entire life, even if my opinions may have shifted a bit or my writing was bad, there aren't many instances I can think off of the top of my head (though examples do exist) where I just flat out had no idea what I was talking about. Considering M_o_T's intro here, it probably had more to do with him being called out and him just trying to fix it. It's one thing to speak with authority on something you're new to, it's another thing entirely to flat out talk out of your ass and make glaring factual/historical errors while doing it, and being publicly called out for it. He was the latter, and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he's just realized his mistake and probably plans to try again in the future when he's more knowledgeable. Taking the OzzyApu route, if you will.

Well those reviews are going on eight years old. A lot of time has elapsed for you to form a new opinion. I rewrote a lot of my earlier reviews in 2013, but my opinions rarely deviated much from the original. I just wanted to bring them up to par with my current standard content-wise.

Plus I'm pissed that I had to moderate all of those submissions, only to have him delete them all as part of what I am assuming is some sort of worthless passive aggressive "statement."

Just a waste of energy all-around,

I remember when something along the same lines happened with Requiem99 several years back. He apparently had a conniption over a review he wrote for a Dark Tranquillity album not getting accepted and proceeded to pull all of his reviews. At the time, I think he was the 4th most prolific reviewer here (Ultraboris was still on top at the time) and it probably took him some time to delete all 400 some odd reviews he had up, especially considering that this was back in the days of Encylopaedia Metallum Version 1.

MoT's reviews were never anything to write home about, and actually there have been a couple of really sub-par reviewers running around here lately with the "thrash" word in their names. A lot of really disproportionately high and low scores without much extreme sentiment present in the reviews, particularly 0 scores that don't really say anything about the album being negative apart from being derivative of an older style and actually is complementary on the execution.

Ah, the 'thrasher' wave. No prizes for guessing the main culprits of that not so old chestnut.

I get the idea of updating old reviews, and even changing the opinion, assuming that wasn't caused by outside pressure (LeMiserable...). It may be an old review where the reviewer was immature about an album, or had no idea what he was talking about.

But deleting a review in, as Diamhea most likely correctly predicted (knowing M_o_T), a passive aggressive 'statement' or in a complete chickening out? Naah, that is just a sign of thin skin on the reviewer's part.

I guess he wasn't the Master of Thrash after all *shrug*

Kinda sucks Requiem99 torched all his reviews - his opinions on a lot of Euro power metal were pretty similar to mine (and he negatively reviewed a lot of shitty/generic albums).

I really admired his work when I first came to this site and purchased around 50 albums on CD based on his reviews. Apparently towards the end he got a bit annoyed with me for going a bit too easy on some of those "shitty"generic" albums, but I was kinda sad to see him go.

He got me into Steel Attack's "Enslaved" - an album I probably wouldn't have bothered with otherwise. There are albums around here that do need scathing reviews (like, Steel Attack "Diabolic Symphony), but I doubt anyone is up to the task for that

But I guess there's no accounting for taste - I usually follow reviewers who hate the same things I hate (or like the same things I like, but that's a rarity). If someone's tastes are completely incongruent to mine, then their reviews aren't going to be too useful to me (unless they're really entertaining).

I didn't agree with him on anything regarding melodeath though.

Ronny Hemlin is probably one of the most frustrating vocalists in power metal because he pretty well established himself as a capable vocalist on "Enslaved" and has since proceeded to overdo his vocals on every single album he's been involved with since. At some point down the road I might be possessed to review "Diabolic Symphony", but I'd probably give it a mediocre score between 50 and 65 rather than outright trash it.

And agreed on the melodeath front, that's primarily what got a lot of his last few reviews rejected, just outright canning albums or just doing a casual write up with no actual description to speak of because he assumed that "hey, everybody knows what Dark Tranquillity sounds like". (I didn't at the time, the extent of my knowledge of melodic death metal 10 years ago was the first 3 Children of Bodom albums, Skyfire's debut, and one of Kalmah's earlier albums, so I tended to view it as having more power metal elements than what was going on with the Gothenburg sound).

Don't laugh, but there was a point in time where I actually wanted Hemlin to be Heiman's successor in Lost Horizon. "NO MORE ENSLAAAAAAVED!!!" Love that song. Diabolic Symphony actually had 2 songs on it that I liked - the title track and one other one. That thing should've been a single, to be honest.

I can't say I miss his negative review of A Canorous Quintet though. I'm probably more sympathetic to 90s melodeath than most power metal fans because I was into that stuff before power metal.

I can't forgive Ronny Hemlin for Carpe DiEnd or for that crap on Tad Morose's Revenant - though in the latter case, the poor musical decisions were the fault of the rest of the band too I assume.

Requiem99 was kind of full of shit. He pitched a fit over at metalcrypt because I liked the new Avantasia stuff - grow the fuck up...and as I've gotten into more metal, looking back, the dude talked out of his ass a lot. He had no clue what he was talking about sometimes.

Yeah, that is pretty lame - no one really has the right to tell someone what they can and cannot like. Carpe DiEnd (lol)... All I remember from it was some song about Angels. I recall it not bothering me as much as Diabolic Symphony, but it didn't have many highs either. I kinda forget it existed. That's the worst thing an album can do, right? lol

One good thing Requiem99 did was persuade me to give Anubis Gate another chance. I wasn't terribly huge on their first 2 albums, but Andromeda Unchained was a godsend - esp. since 2007 was a musical desert for me (at the time).

Yeah, he had some good reviews for sure, he was prolific and had his own voice. But some of it came off like he just listened to the album once and gave it a rave review...rookie stuff, except he had been doing it a while. It's been so long I barely remember a lot of what he wrote, but it just came off as overly instinctual, impulse reaction reviewing sometimes.

I never heard Diabolic Symphony, guess I don't have to really.

Damn, you were all quick to notice all my crappy reviews are gone. I understand why you guys are saying what you are, but I removed them for multiple reasons. The first and most obvious reason being, they are simply shit. Secondly, I wanted to clear my reviews section because I would like to start from scratch once I get better. They also have inaccuracies and a decent amount of bullshit in them, so why should I keep them? Who the hell even read them before people took notice and started battering them? Nobody, especially the Metallica review for VERY obvious reasons (what a dumbass I was). The "passive-aggressive" attitude was simply me trying to hold my ground. Deleting reviews doesn't make someone gutless and pathetic. They're just reviews on an online forum for God's sake. And for the record, Diamhea, I greatly appreciate you reading those terrible reviews even though you constantly mock me, and I'm sorry you thought this was a big middle finger to you because that's not how I see it.

Diabolic Symphony is very similar to Carpe DiEnd, I found both albums mediocre but nothing that really irked me to the same degree that it did you. With regard to Requiem99, back in the 2004-2006 stretch when he was really active the quality standards weren't the same and I found his input to be a little bit more reliable than some of the other power metal reviewers at the time, and honestly almost everything I wrote during that time period is in dire need of some editing and formatting work, if not a complete overhaul. One thing is for sure, the guy needed to chill out and hopefully has done so.

Well, I noticed that a Master of Puppets review had left the building, and since yours happened to be at the top, that was noticeable straight away. Second, well, sorry for jumping to conclusions, but given the past, the idea of a passive-aggressive 'statement' or a chickening out were the first things that came to mind. That said, not making any statement about it before hand will lead to assumptions being made regardless. I can symapthise with you for the aggressive reaction towards having a review flogged to death, but you must learn to take the criticism to head (not heart) and apply it. Hopefully your rewritten reviews reflect this.

And to be frank, unless a reviewer changes his mind of an album independent of outside pressure, or feels that the review is not up to his standards (or basic site standards, as outlined by the rules, not someone else directly), deleting reviews is kind of pathetic. You didn't do that as it turns out (again, sorry for jumping to conclusions), but it shows that the reviewer is thin skinned and can't stand by what he has said. Even if they are merely posts online, they are still that reviewer's opinions. They should certainly matter to him, if no one else.

You know what man, I could care less if you or anyone else thinks I am thin-skinned for deleting a bunch of reviews that clearly aren't very good. Here's why my reviews weren't very good. I wrote all of them when I was doing an online statistics course as part of my university degree during the summer months, so I was pretty much bored out of my mind or half asleep. I know you're thinking this is a lame excuse, but that's what was going on with me and those awful reviews. I don't think you would have wanted to read reviews written by a person lacking caffeine and falling asleep on his laptop at 8 PM. Hopefully you can see the point in why I did what I did; it is so I can redeem myself after a shitty introduction and start over by writing better, shorter, and more correct reviews of albums less reviewed. You won't even see me reviewing albums with a significant number of reviews (10+) ever again, unless it's a new release.

If you're going to write a review again, make up your mind first and don't contradict yourself. In your deleted Painkiller review you at first mentioned how that album is Judas Priest's most varied and would later on describe how all the songs pretty much sound all the same. I'm sure you understand that's silly and confusing to read.

Also focus more on the music you're describing than spending time on writing about a band's fan base and whatnot.

Also, don't submit reviews written when

,

I mean, honestly!

Still, you got most of them accepted even though you wrote them in a sort of noxious caffeine dream, possibly while arguing with people who weren't there which may explain some of the contradictions, if you sit down nice and freshfaced with a cup of PG Tips next time who knows what you could do!

There you go! More reasons to not hold on to these reviews. I think what I was trying to say was that there is a balance between speed, heaviness, and aggression of varying levels between individual songs, but they were all played in the same key, I suppose. I guess they all came together as one piece. So you're right, it probably did come across as a contradiction.

I assure you, when I get back to writing reviews at some point, I will make sure they are written with more quality. It was more like quantity over quality for me, and that's obviously not the way to go.

Also, sushiman, at least you get me! I thought writing reviews would re-energize me, but that clearly didn't work.

It is a good thing I didn't think that once some context had been applied to your actions, like I have said thrice now. And what on earth compelled you to write reviews when, well, pretty 'out of it' so to speak?

Well, he didn't. This is just revisionist backpedaling evoked to safe face. I dunno why he is even bothering, or building up his inevitable (supposed) return to writing. The story doesn't even really make sense. "I was really tired, out of it and exhausted. So I decided to write reviews in a murky mental haze just to pass the time."

You're right, you could care less, as you could have easily just not responded to any of this stuff instead.

But seriously, you're overthinking it. So you wrote some shitty reviews, we all need to start somewhere. I don't really see what the big fuss is about deleting them or all these grand statements about how you're going to improve or redeem yourself. It's really not that big of a deal. If you wanted to improve you should have just left the reviews alone and focused on writing new ones, and if you really don't care, I don't see why you've wasted so much time with this.

Frankly I can't remember any of your reviews though. I doubt people really cared about them being bad as much as you thought.

I deleted a bunch of shitty reviews that I wrote for no other reason than I wasn't proud of them.

Me too.

Well it's certainly better than sitting around jerking off all day

I can't actually tell if you are implying that is what I do all day, or if that is a hypothetical situation of how you would spend your own day if you didn't review shit. The rolling eyes certainly isn't helping.