From that statement, I assume that to you, a solid album is like a 70. I'd agree with that. For others though, the word's used like "that was fuckin' solid dude!!" Words sometimes have different connotations to different people.

my review score table

100: unique
90-99: excellent
80-89: very good
70-79: good
60-69: not good, not bad
50-59: average
40-49: mediocre
30-39: worthy of improvement
20-29: bad
10-19: very bad
01-09: poor... really
00: Whatever you did, please do the world a favor and do it NEVER again.

I would put solid at a 60-69 score.

That I was unaware of. Still, first point stands.

The dude is from the Netherlands, do the maths. His English skills are hardly the issue with his reviews though outside some stuff like this mistake.

1. I do not think i've used the term horrible anywhere, it mostly came down to it being decent and a bit boring.
2. I took the name of the review straight from the lyrics, and, that's where first languages do their work. Anyway, FIXED!

Look, my definition of solid is basically 75-83%. Solid albums in my eyes are albums that do their job well but add nothing really extra to it. Everything below that is either decent (say, 65-74%) or mediocre (50-64%) and everything below that is just painfully mediocre or just bad.

For reference:

I'll do the math

Take your English back to England!

LeMiserable, I took a look at a bunch of your reviews. They are not anything write home about, certainly.

If I could give you a single piece of advice, drop the first person completely. I don't give a fuck about you, I want to know something about the album. Yes, it's an opinion, and yes, it's your opinion, but I don't want you to rub in the idea that it's you with the opinions behind it. Try to write one completely without using the first person, and see if someone actually likes the result.

I have spoken.

Let me echo Napero's advice and say that putting yourself in your reviews the way you're doing makes it come off like, "the opinion of everyone else is this, well here is mine and let that be known to everyone". Basically what Napero is saying - it's less about what the album sounds like and more about what your opinion about it sounding like is, as if it is the point of the review, and how that comes out to the reader.

Thanks for the advice, i'll take a look.

UPDATE: Alright, edited most of 'em. Took out alot of the "I think's, "for me's" and things alike. Also updated some a bit in general.

Anything else?

Also deleted quite a few reviews cause I don't wanna review an album in the midst of a discography and then review the earlier albums later, doesn't make sense to me, they'll be re-added soon. Some of these discographies are simply a bit too vast or interesting to review only 1 or a few more albums about (e.g. Carcass, Kreator, Suffocation)

Hey folks, been on MA for thousands of years and just now seeing this review discussion thread. Happy to have been mentioned here once or twice, though I took a trek over to Global Domination (now dead) to do my reviewing long ago.

Just wanted to add my two cents on bitterman - the guy cracks me up every single time. Stuff about "having the soul of AC/DC", flowcharts, etc. is comedy gold. Seeing the contrast between his review and autothrall's (one of best out there) for some new album was priceless.

I dont think anyone was trying to edit your reviews from here. I think the ultimate point was to improve future reviews.

And to be honest, I wouldnt let others dictate how I review, unless all you are interested in is appeasing this board...

Only thing I really want to add here. Roy, your reviews are generally fine and your grammar is good for ESL, but you need to make a conscious effort at coming to some sort of resolution or conclusion when you write. Oftentimes your reviews just sort of...end with no real logical end cap or what have you. Just saying...

Quite right. I was thinking of this myself too. But i'm pretty scared of repeating myself, I know that's already what i'm doing but i'm quite sure that's the limit English not being my native languague gives me. I've noticed most things to conclude an album with end up being pretty similar in my case, i'm going to take a look at it anyway, thanks for the feedback.



I'm trying to find a balance between liking my own reviews and making sure other people can read it without getting too much second thoughts of the person who's written it. It's pretty easy for me to say I like my reviews and understand what I write down because I write them myself, but i've noticed others have some trouble with the flow of some of my reviews, it's something I don't quite see yet, it's bound to improve if my review-writing skills improve as well.

Feedback is always welcome.

Hey LeMiserable, I'm not the best reviewer on this site and I'm not even close to be it, this is just me and my opinion. But seriously, are you going to review each and every Kreator album now? After reviewing the entire Sepultura and Death discography? I admit that I read those, but honestly I think that Kreator's pretty well covered by now. I can understand that maybe it's one of your favorite bands and you want to contribute and stuff, but seriously, there are too many of them already, and they're not adding anything new either. I'd also like to review my favorite bands, but it's already been done. Are you going to do it with Suffo and Carcass too? Come on, don't be another StainedClass95.


And also, this line sounded like "Okay, everyone listens to Coma of Souls, well, my taste is better so I listen to this album". Seriously, people don't care much about that, and if you're going to mention it, try not to sound as "this is my opinion, look at it", like OzzyApu said.

Don't want to sound harsh, just speaking my mind. Peace!

Coma of Souls is mostly regarded as Kreator's finest hour, I honestly don't like it as much and I think it's overrated. But people who don't regard CoS as Kreator's finest usually (Usually, which is why I wrote "generally" in my review, and not "always", for example) end up saying PtK is. Perhaps my way of writing it is a bit self-centered but based on my observation (which is not much to write home about, admittedly) that what I wrote down there is true.

And I seriously don't give 1/1000th of a fuck how much albums have been reviewed before. I write reviews because I like to and I know that my opinion on Kreator generally differs greatly from the majority of the reviewers. I'd have surely thought twice if I liked every album as much as the average scores of the albums on MA imply. The same was very true for Sepultura (83% for BtR, but 90% for Against) but not so much for Death, but Death is just one of those bands that I had to review because they opened a much broader "eye" for me to look at metal, so to speak...

I'm kind of a noted asshole, but you guys are really piling on LeMis right now. His whining on the boards and whatever is one thing, criticizing his reviews is also completely fine, but using first person? Giving his opinion on Coma of Souls in one sentence? Reviewing discographies? Come on guys.

A review is an opinion, who the fuck cares if he said "I", "me", "my"?

EyesOfGlass's quoted complaint is like the most petty, grasping-for-straws criticism I've seen in eons. I don't get that impression from that line at all.

Reviewing discographies can certainly be redundant, sure, but one of the big reasons that the old unspoken rule of a soft cap around 25 for reviews was explicitly abolished is because that's completely unfair for people who were late to the game. A redundant opinion on Kreator really only actively irritates the mods because we've gotta read it before it goes up, everybody else can just ignore it. But the thing is that the reviews are not for us. They're for you. We mods are just the middleman that has to give the thumbs up before it goes live, and when it does, it doesn't mean shit to us anymore. Why stop somebody from reviewing what they want to review just because you don't want to read it? Fucking don't read it then. Complain when you disagree, absolutely. Praise when you think it's very well written, 100% yes. If you see the ten thousandth review for Slayer, roll your eyes and keep clicking. We mods bitching between each other is one thing, we don't have a choice, the rest of the userbase totally has a choice, and berating the guy for writing about a subject you don't care about is insanely petty. It's the same logic that makes the anti-gay marriage stance so goddamn stupid.

Ok, fine by me, just wanted to ask. I won't make a fuss out of it, you're free to do whatever you want. Cheers dude!

I didn't want to sound like that at all. I can get it, you can't, everyone will see it from a different point of view. I don't care if he reviews Kreator's discography, Metallica's, Megadeth's or whatever, it's great and I'm not whining about it, I just wanted to share my opinion. He's free to do whatever he pleases and I don't want to look like an asshole. I apologize if it's needed, and I wasn't "grasping for straws".

I meant specifically the complaint about that one line in the PtK review. I have no idea how you can seriously glean an arrogant, holier-than-thou attitude from that line.

I don't either. Maybe I went a bit too far. I'm not the guy who's always complaining, but I thought I'd point it out. Seems it wasn't a good idea at all.

Actually, the amount of criticism I get for my reviews right now doesn't even surprise me. For anyone who's been paying attention, I've put out close to 25 reviews this week (with more coming) and that's almost guaranteed to stir something up, I'm not the most battle-hardened reviewer as I've only been on MA for 8 months or so and I have only very recently adopted a reviewing style that's easy to write and understandable for others (in my opinion) which is also why I have been prone (I still am) to deleting my own reviews because I kept changing and evolving my writing style, but the one I have now is one I like and it works. Admittedly, some albums get more attention than others and the discography reviews I'm doing right now aren't exactly the "grandest" reviews I have done but that's because I don't wanna write a review of SoS or NSV proportions for every single album i'm doing, that's when I really start repeating myself and get all cliché and what not. My reviews are meant to be short or long where needed and to the point. Again, English is not my native language so I won't/can't write totally off-topic introductory paragraphs because I find them both hard to write and pointless, because it only distracts and (possibly) holds no relation with the album in question.

Everyone is free to have their say on my reviews, but for things such as "this album has been reviewed 1.000 times before" (which only really concerns a few people, who are apparently willing to waste their ever so precious time on both reading and bragging about reviews they "apparently" don't give a fuck about, really, if you actually cared as little as you claim you do you wouldn't be here) is completely bullshit and on that regard I fully agree with BastardHead, if you don't wanna see them, then fucking don't look at them. If there's something that's bound to be annoying to more than merely a handful of people, then feel free to complain.

Again, if you want to review the classics just go ahead, it's great and it's fine by me. I may or may not agree with the artist choices, but that's not the point. Anyone is free to review whatever they want, it wasn't my intention to look down on anyone or to dismiss your work and look like an asshole, as that's easy around here. You just go ahead.

Well, that's the part that irked me about the few items I read. It's OK to use them, although I personally tend to avoid it; in his case, it's sometimes like a diary entry, and gets pretty damn exhausting very, very quickly. Used in moderation, it's OK, but making sure every damn sentence makes it obvious as fuck that any opinions are personal and absolutely subjective with no weight at all beyond that eats away at the credibility.

And yes, that's just my opinion.


And this might be a considerably big part of the problem. I'll leave the proof as an exercise to the reviewer.

The quality of my reviews certainly isn't down to the speed I write them at. I know really well how to put my words on "paper", so to speak. What you read is my style, and you can see that style is retained through every single review I've written so far, whether it is the gigantic None So Vile review or the short-but-effective review of Endless Pain...

I should say that I definitely agree that it's irritating as hell if overdone. Constantly adding "in my opinion" and stuff to everything seems like a really cheap way to backpedal immediately whenever you're criticized for something (I see it all the time on the forums, people whining because reviewers are "presenting opinion as fact" when they don't do exactly that, apparently unaware that going in the opposite extreme is equally annoying and makes readers even less likely to give a shit about what the writer is saying).



You'd be amazed how much you can improve as a writer when you take time to let things sit and digest. I don't just mean your opinion of an album (you've been criticized enough for your constant waffling whenever challenged already), but I mean your writing in general. Pumping out a ton of stuff really quickly does nobody any favors. Slowing down and taking an outside look in is really helpful.

Like I mentioned in the HQ, giving suggestions doesn't equate to giving demands to do something. I get the feeling, BH, that you are adamant to aim for the "bare minimum" in feedback when it comes to folks being able to have complete freedom of expression in their writing, but it never hurts to give feedback on those qualities of a review that would improve the review, both in quality but also in style. I get the feeling that most folks would agree, through some "common sense" or shared "review culture" what makes for good, quality reviews. Letting folks know that using first person is one way to improve one's review is part of that shared sense among us as to what makes for a better review. Besides, for some folks improving their reviews might entail avoiding doing things that may be OK for others but detrimental to themselves.

This goes out to everyone, but so long as you recognize that the intentions of those folks giving feedback is to make you a better reviewer in their eyes, you will have greater success (overall) as a writer in this theatre... and likely in other areas as well.

That SinCaptor95 guy seriously "digs" his music

oneyoudontknow's new review is as pointless as he feels the tape is. Im all for negative reviews but its a lazy attempt.

I didn't want to jump on the hating LeMiserable's reviews bandwagon but the Extreme Aggression one is brutal. For one thing, this album wasn't mainstream at all. Less raw/brutal than the last few? Sure. But that's because it's tighter and more technical. Also, the album doesn't sound like Coma of Souls. CoS has better production and is less technical. The songs are more straightforward, but overall not as good. Also, I would argue it has the most memorable riffs of any Kreator album (most memorable in terms of both quality and quantity).

I can't fathom how a thrash fan could give that less than 70% (or less than 95% for that matter )

All right, is it really too much to ask that anyone who deigns to write a review at least have some basic grasp of the correct use of punctuation? I'm sick to death of seeing it's where its should be. I hate to be one of those people who loses his cool over things like this, but come on. If you're going to write, then learn to write.

Yay, the Empyrium review got accepted! I was tempted to write a quite lengthy review describing much more details and descriptions but I finally kept it more simple.

Extreme Aggression was pretty mainstream for its time, got a lot of attention from the public. One could argue over what the mainstream really was, but you get the point. And the rest is all purely your opinion.

And no, it really isn't memorable at all, pretty monotone actually..

No it wasn't, and no, it didn't. Don't rewrite history. There's a difference between thrash history, and the history of pop music.

Cheers to DawnoftheShred for finally tackling Budgie's latest (last?) album. I've been waiting on that one for what seems like ages.

As Napero said, if the band wanted to write a pop album, they would.

But even in the context of thrash, that album wasn't mainstream. You are comparing it to literally the most brutal music to have existed in 1986. It's like saying The Bleeding was mainstream because it wasn't as brutal as Tomb of the Mutilated. If you are looking for more "mainstream" thrash in that time, you could look to the increasing number of bands that added ballads (something Kreator never did in their early work), or slowing down (they barely did this, and it wasn't until Coma of Souls that they did this). I relistened to the album in the car after reading your review and I cannot express how much I disagree with the sentiment that this album is mainstream.

Frolic Through the Park was out a year before Extreme Aggression. 'Nuff said.

If I didn't knew Kreator and the very first thing I read/hear from them was that EA review, I would think the band is a sort of Metallica post black album or something. Machine head at best.

I remember when the album came out and it was well received; it was brutal enough with great production, the songs were memorable, catchy and filled with good riffs.

Not trying to offend anyone but the only people I see hating it (and other classics like MoP) is people who got into metal post 2000 that, after they left behind their grunge/nu metal phase, got into the Internet and spent countless hours downloading stuff, reading Wikipedia, elitist forums and believed they knew what happened in the 80's like if they lived back then.

Or ya know, dont give a shit about "back then" and let their own personal experiences dictate their musical taste. People pretending to like old shit is what keeps a lot of useless old shit around.

Yeah, it was a slip-up. I'll update were needed. My apologies.

Ps. Kreator were certainly trying to make their music more accessible with EA...right? EA is pretty mellow compared to PtK.