I can't tell how sarcastic this post is. Clearly my review was so sarcastic it's backfiring on me now.

I suppose you deserve somewhat more detailed critique.

I'm sure you intended to have a chilled, sarcastic and facetious tone. Unfortunately it comes across as poignantly condescending. It's because what could've been a joke at the end of one paragraph was smeared all over the stuff of your review, obscuring some very good points and the more earnest-toned descriptive passages with arrogant overtones.

Anyone in their right mind will agree that disliking something entirely because it's "popular with hipsters" or whatever is laughable, and I think it's called for to point out that positive pitchfork reviews don't mean that there is necessarily something fundamentally wrong with the music from a serious listener's perspective. The notion that the Pitchfork crowd is attacking metal is also amusingly dumb. However, you come across as some irritating, aggressive martyr. You're often defending Sunbather juxtaposed to traditional metal tropes that you heavily deprecate, even though those things have nothing to do with the album in question. By the sixth paragraph, the constant reiteration of your theme was getting redundant and tiresome.

Oh, I noticed what happened after my last posts just now. And hello caspian, how's your daily life of a semi-literate retard? Finished primary school already or still struggling?


Well, thank you for lending me the the term, "profoundly retarded" is a perfect phrase to describe about half of the staff and regulars of this site and especially forum, who are so OMFG I'M SUCH A FUCKING TOUGH FUCKING GUY FUCK but instantly become crying little girls as soon as some HERETIC dares counter their one and only correct views. "Waaaaaa, he does not want to agree with everything we say! Moooooom!"

But then, we're talking about people who tagged Meshuggah as "technical nu-metal" in full seriousness for a while and said Moonspell's "Irreligious" is "not a properly metal record because of rock song structures" so actually I don't know what the fuck I was expecting and why I had thought any of you have grown up. God, I'm no longer surprised many people see MA as the laughing stock of the internet.

Ugh, once again I made the dumb mistake of assuming most people have a brain and can be reasoned with, I guess I got another example optimism doesn't work often. Have fun with your circlejerk, kids

I have no problem with those critiques; I figured the review would come off as arrogant or incessant to some people. I would hope nobody would take it as "you have to like what I like" though; that was never the point. Zodijackyl's review of the album is totally fine by me and there are several people here who have criticized it who I think are totally justified. I just think this whole Joseph McCarthy-esque hipster witch hunt is ridiculous. I planned to do this review back in January when I heard the album first, but I held off because I wanted to wait and see if it really held up for me, and if maybe - just maybe - the whole inflammatory reaction toward the album would simmer down. But I'm still seeing people bitching about the hipster aspect of the band.

I dunno, I won't debate you on your claims that the review is martyresque or too defensive, but it was pretty much just a joke, and one I don't think would have worked as well if I just kept it to the opening paragraph. I expected people to react the way you did and I understand why you feel that way. It's probably not a trick I'd do for another album after this.

Yeah, the "you have to like what I like" thing I said was definitely a strawman, and that's not actually a problem in your review. It's rather that when woven into the actual critique of the album, the sarcastic stuff in the review renders the arguments strawmanesque themselves. Seems it was intended to be more tongue-in-cheek than I deciphered. I can attest to the difficulty of using heavy sarcasm effectively - can you believe some readers have taken my Liturgy review at face value? The extent of sarcasm in that one should be painfully obvious, but to some people it just doesn't come across. There are so many different levels of sarcasm and the actual intended message behind it can vary drastically.

I suppose timing is pretty important for reviews like this. Yours might end up giving important insights to people reading about Sunbather long after the album was actively discussed by the metal community, which I think is always inherently valuable.

That Deafheaven review was hilarious - beautiful job.

I don't get the point of writing a review like that in the first place. The whole point of it wasn't to describe the album but to put on this big song and dance about this nonsense strawman bullshit, like how anyone who hates Deafheaven is an evil elitist who thinks Pitchfork is taking over metal. It's rather ironic given that it's coming from Empy, of all people. There's really no other point of the review but to incite a circlejerk among Deafheaven fanns/troll.

But if we're on the topic, I'm getting sick of this hyperbolic whining. If there is one fanbase more entitled and desiring to be victimized, I have yet to see it.

It isn't about people who don't like the band, it's about hyperbolic hate of bands like that for superficial reasons that don't really have a base in reality. I never said a word about people who just find the album boring, sugary, etc. All the stereotypes/strawmen I lampooned in that review aren't exaggerations; they're real things I've read from around here as excuses to hate the band. There was a similar backlash against Pallbearer recently and while I don't really know as much about that band's music, it was the same thing again - lots of instant-reflexive "hipster" backlash with only part of the critique actually being about the band itself and the album in question. I love "true" metal as much as anybody, but that doesn't mean I don't find this stuff tiresome at best and completely ludicrous at worst.

Hipster hatred is only really valid when the band themselves act like they're above metal or in it ironically, etc. For instance I'd understand hating Michael Kiske or someone for that reason, as he had a very obnoxious attitude at one point. Just talking about the fans, magazine reviews, etc. isn't a valid criticism.

PS Gunther, you saved me a review about the new Septicflesh...good one...

I wish everyone would stop comparing Deafheaven to metal. It's like comparing Dark Funeral to Trouble because they both sing about Satan.

Agreed. Absolutely the worst, most annoying Empyreal review I've ever read. Reads almost like TheLiberation hacked his account after getting the hammer.

Here's my two cents on the "war on metal" or whatever: the real irony is that, in spite of their half-assed attempts to out-obscure one another in all aspects of life, hipsters sometimes genuinely *do* hit upon some really neat shit and promote the hell out of it and help it grow. However distasteful I might find them as people, the least I can say is that they do sometimes do neat things, like bolster the craft beer industry or build whole-hog barbecue joints in Williamsburg.

So then, fucking Deafheaven? The band really isn't all that bad. As I've said a million times before, they're basically just Envy plus some generic "pretty" sounding modern USBM. There's really nothing wrong with that combination in theory, and since I love both Envy and plenty of pretty, modern black metal the band had an opportunity to do something worthwhile. However, they're kind of missing the forest for the "pretty tremolo melodies and screaming" trees - the screamo/post-rock side of their sound, which makes up a huge part of where they're coming from, doesn't work without a cinematic sense of dynamics, something that Deafheaven haven't figured out how to incorporate into their songwriting.

Pallbearer, however, are much worse. They're basically Warning/40 Watt Sun worship of the most boring caliber. The problem here is that these goddamn hipsters don't really make the effort to be metalheads and explore what there is to listen to - instead they hear the first band that could be described to them as "doom" that doesn't sound like Isis clone #43245634 and they think it's the second coming because they've never heard fucking Solitude Aeturnus. It's just frightfully boring stuff being championed as the saviors of doom by people who don't really know any other doom.

And here you are, contributing to the same problem from inside of metaldom: "While I profess no expertise in genres like screamo or post rock or anything else like that - and readily admit there are bands who probably do this sound better than Deafheaven - I still find the album enjoyable overall and it listens like a breeze for me." You admitted yourself that you don't really know what you're talking about, so why would you say it?

Well I mean if he thinks it sounds good then that's really all there is to it, no?

Because it is good. Finding out about other bands wouldn't just make me go, oh, this suddenly sucks now - it may widen my perspective, but it wouldn't change what I like about the album!

Oh, certainly not, and that's also reflected in the actual numerical score you gave the album, which simply further begs the question of why you had to twuntishly defend the album in such an obnoxious way if you only gave it the score that you did.

Empyreal's Deafheaven review was indeed quite cunning and surprising. Although I'm not at all familiar with their stuff I guess they're pretty much on the same receiving end as Pallbearer.



This whole hipster thing started with Mastodon as far as I know. Anyway, Pallbearer does have that introspective Warning vibe to their sound but they're not a clear-cut Warning derivative to my ears. Sorrow and Extinction probably was more akin to Warning but Foundations.... has vocal harmonies and certain more rock oriented parts, "The Ghost I Used to Be" for instance and scattered guitar licks throughout which is obviously missing from 40 Watt Sun although Warning's material had limited guitar leads. And, hey, I'm well acquainted with Solitude Aeturnus' discography and they're not quite a Candlemass derivative either. Well, enough talk of doom legends. Pallbearer are also great to me at least as I've said to each his own.

Yours sincerely,
hip-doomster999

twin_guitar_attack should put some more effort into proofreading, even if it's exciting to be one of the first to publish a review for a new Cannibal Corpse album.

Fixed; that was sorta my fault. He has been notified in the past for minor issues. I sent him a reminder, that was just inexcusable.

I swear, nobody knows obscure early '90s thrash like this bayern fella.

But damn, his reviews are so hard on the eyes and excessively overlong. Somewhere in there is an enviable well of knowledge, but damn!

;_; It makes me sad to see so many people around here complaining about reviews that are too long. Oftentimes, it feels like a complete and total exposition of the album I'm writing about is the only way I can be satisfied with my review.

mhm, the highest rated albums in my review list are all pretty darn long.

Even if a review is long using patient economy of language will communicate effectively without being hard on the eyes. Mostly the hurt comes from having to read superfluous words -- the curse of the mod grind, in a nut shell.

It's the difference in quality between a long review and a sprawling one.

Mmm...not sure why you would even take offense here. Your reviews are lengthy, but not in a necessarily detrimental way (as briefly touched upon by Grave_Wyrm). Sometimes painting a brief history is critical in order to demonstrate/clarify points later made, but the writer in question oftentimes opens with a comprehensive scene breakdown that just seems....excessive. Note that I am still praising some of his better qualities, but hey what do I know?

Some people can really do long reviews well. Me, I've come to think reviews are better short, and most albums I don't have a lot to say about.

The only short reviews I can do now are gimmick reviews. I'm prone to the rambling and the occasional history lesson (I did it in my Lamb of God review, I know), but that's just what's natural to me. I'm longwinded and try-hard, it's just pretty much the only way I know how to do it. When I try writing a short review, I never feel like I've said enough.

Apologies if this is a redundant topic, but what is the consensus on collaborative reviews? That is, a review that is clearly and plainly written by two people, and laid out in a manner that divides the commentary of both reviewers. Kind of like an interview with two people, in which their separate answers are delineated as such. I can understand why MA wouldn't allow it, but if not I find it strange that I've personally never seen such a review. A search of the forums only yields a collaboration between BastardHead and RapetheDead, but even that looked like more of a review 'swap' than a combined effort.

I ask because my friend and I are interested in transcribing notes from our album listening sessions. Obviously it would undergo considerable editing, rather than being entirely improvised. If anyone knows of any precedent for this sort of thing, let me at it.

I do not see a problem with that, as long as it's entirely an original piece of work and you both want it to be here. Making a note in the submitting user profile, explaining the situation would be a good idea. If either one ever wants to have it removed, it will need to go, of course.

Be careful not to turn it into a chatty-toned gimmick, though, especially if you wish to make several of them. If it slips into a mood that resembles a piece of sports commentary by several goofy-looking guys in ill-fitting suits, it will be a devastatingly daunting chore to read. If written well, it could very well be enjoyable, though.

Right, it'll take some work to pull off. Worst case, I simply compile all of the ideas into one narrative rather than two. I generally intend for the tone to be rather light hearted, but not gimmicky as you said. The concept alone of having two perspectives in a review is one I find really intriguing. Although who knows what will happen if we disagree completely on a particular record.

Thanks for the response, Napero.

To go along with what Nap wrote, our principle on plagiarism is meant to root out people who steal the works of others, not chastise or suppress legitimate efforts to write original reviews.

Noted. Re-doing it now, even that first paragraph is cringeworthy. That's what you get for writing while drinking, even if you are typing up notes you made on the train

Edit - how was this even allowed? I've never caught so many mistakes in my own work. Actually ashamed.

Honestly, at least do the editing when sober. You have no quota or salary here, so there's never a hurry to have anything published. There's no excuse for publishing stuff that has been typed drunk and not proof-read when sober.

^the above reasons are why I sometimes just don't give a shit. Changed now anyway.

It was allowed because the majority of the errors were syntax related and not necessarily typos, so when I popped open the 'Edit' tab (which is the first thing I do to check for errors) none of these actually flagged red. Furthermore, I had just recently cleared out the review queue, a place where this work of yours stands out as one of the better writings. If that is believable.

I had actually planned on doing exactly this with another reviewer like a year or two ago, but we never really worked out a time or a method in which to do it. I think it'd be fun if you're both good at what you do, otherwise it could border between lopsided and painful to read.

It's a good idea, really but the main issue that I see is that one of the reviewers won't have the review on his profile. Not sure I'd allow the same review to be submitted twice...

Well I assume they'd agree which dude got to post it. In my case I wasn't even really considering putting it on MA for that reason and would have instead just kept it to my blog (and his as well if he'd wanted to).

@hells_unicorn
Revenant did record and release material after Prophecies..., it's just extremely bad, almost groove type of stuff.

Hahaha, to throw twin_guitar_attack under the bus a little more, he submitted a review for the latest Dark Fortress, and copied it from his blog carelessly so in the middle of his review it just stopped and said:

DARK FORTRESS - PHOTO

I should have left it

@BastardHead, Metantoine:
Good points, I figure taking turns will be the best solution. We can also indicate on our MA profiles which reviews are written in tandem, but were uploaded by the other person. A blog would also be a good idea, especially for less serious reviews that aren't quite up to snuff.

I know the average ConorFynes review is mostly his brainless yammering, but god damn, this Devil Doll review barely says a damn thing about the album. There are a couple observations and notes on performance, but it seems like he was completely unable to digest any of the elements heard on the album to comment on this piece as a whole.

http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/D ... nes/227178

What bothers me most is that he spends more time approaching aesthetic components on the creator's perspective rather than of the music itself. While I can understand how hard it must be to review any Devil Doll album, the fact is that the review promises a bit but then fades away with (yes, indeed) little musical description.

I wouldn't call it oven fodder material, but I hoped more of it. On the other hand, yeah, it's pretty fucking hard to describe Devil Doll's music any way you look at it.

I'm willing to put money down on this now, LB is the funniest dude who's ever written for the site.